Shie Kasai | Blog

Maintenant ouvert/Temporairement fermé Opening

Here are some pics of the opening of DOLLA-RAMEN, Februaly 25 2012.

Maintenant ouvert/Temporairement fermé

My dear friend Jenny Lin and I have a collaboration project called "Maintenant ouvert/Temporairement fermé". It is a site-specifc installation that takes place during the Nuit Blanche in Montreal 2012, also presented part of Artsouterrain that runs through February 25 to March 11 2012.

We're opening a restaurant called DOLLA-RAMEN!

Here's a pic during our installation on late Tuesday night.

Finally, the site is up

It's been a lot of work. One month in Finland already passed. I haven't had chance to do any shopping except the groceries. I hope I'll have some time to get some souvenirs in the remaining month.

It started yesterday afternoon, the wind got stronger and stonger, then the snow started. It didn't stop, probably all night. We woke up this morning, everything was covered in white. I haven't gone out for two days, I don't know how cold it got. From the window I saw a mother carrying her child on a sled.

The website for the Muku & Coro in Rauma Finland is finally up. Phew, the first part is done! DONE! It's been so busy. But I still have the second part to do...

Pori newspaper covered the production story of "muku & coro" in Rauma on their Sunday art section.

The second week in Finland

It's so cold here.

Our apartment is about 25 minutes walk to the city central. Having a baby in a stroller, we have to walk there, even just to get decent groceries and wines. We haven't figured how the bus runs, they say every half hour, but that's pretty much all the information we got. We have bikes that we could use, but I'm not too sure how much longer we can bike. It snowed yesterday morning already.

It's great that a lot of people speak English here, but I'm pretty lost especially at the grocery stores. I haven't had enough time to really study how things are and how to read labels. I feel like I'm always in a rush, bike downtown to do some errands between the baby feeds, like every 2 to 3 hours...I've been doing 2 roundtrips each day for the last few days and this is quite tiring. I'm getting a lot of exercise for sure.

Anyhow, finally I'm making decisions(materials and schedules) about the project. I'm getting some responses from the potential collaborators. I just have to start painting.

One week left to Finland!

I finally took out my suitcase from the dark and dusty storage in the back of our apartment. Slowly I started to pick stuff I may need over there, but what do I need? I haven't traveled for some time now and I forgot the deal of going somewhere for more than a week! or taking an airplane! I feel like I need everything but at the same time, I may not need anything, except a camera (in fact two nights ago I had a nightmare where I forgot to bring my camera), project deta files, drawing materials, my mouthguard and maybe some clothes but the worst case I could be wearing the same outfit for 2 months...if I'm lack of something I could probably buy there too.

I'm excited to do Muku & Coro project in Rauma, Finland. It's a small city of 40,000 people, 4 hours west of the capital Helsinki by bus. Raumars hosts a residency program which I happened to be selected. I always wanted to visit scandinavia countries at least once in my life and I also have a friend in Helsinki to visit (to complete the Long distance version of Muku & Coro), I'm happy that this residency opportunity will allow me to achieve these goals.

There was another residency opportunity given to me through les Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes, in Liepaja, Latvia, in the spring of 2009. That could've been the first Muku & Coro project to try out outside of my social network. But after all this was canceled due to a political conflict that the host organization had to encounter, and I've been looking for other possible places for the project.

To realize the project in a new strange place will be challenging, I'm not sure what to expect. And especially that I've been taking some time-off since the birth of our baby, I'm not yet in a working mode. But I have a good feeling about this. As far as I understand, Rauma is a beautiful place, we'll be living in an apartment only a block away from water, the Gulf of Bothnia...this also satisfies one of my dreams that I always wanted to live by a sea.

Anyway, I'd better go back to packing...

Survival Japanese Cooking Publication

Yes, finally the exhibition catalogue came out! There was a book launch on February 4 2010 at the MAI. It was also the last day for my dearest Zoë who worked there as a visual arts coordinator for some years. Without her effort and hard work, my exhibition nor the catalogue wouldn't have been realized.

Texts by Zoë Chan, Shié Kasai, Tatiana Mellema
In French and English

140 pp / colour illustrations /soft cover / 6" x 6"
ISBN 978-2-9809292-4-3

And thanks to Pata, who did a great job in designing the book!

CBC's Creative Block

Check out on October 31 at 6pm, CBC Ottawa premier digital channel, Creative Block.

P2P (Peer to Painting) Video Launch at Oboro

The video launch at Oboro on September 25th went very well. Thanks to everyone who came out!

There was a demo station set for a token-ring network where people could actually make paintings in a group of 4.

I will upload the documentation hopefully soon...

P2P (Peer to Painting) Production Photos

I uploaded some P2P (Peer to painting) production photos.

P2P (Peer to Painting) continues...

It's been two Wednesdays ago since I started to be "canned" in the video editing room at Oboro. I had no weekend, not even a day break since. I've been going there every single day, stay there for 8 to 10 hours each day!

It's been quite hot these last few days, and the room is boiling too as it's on the third floor. In the recycle bin my empty coffee cups are starting to pile up.

On the 10th day of the editing (I mean, Friday the 14th of August), finally I started to see some light. I was coming out from this dark cloudy mass. I don't even know how I got here. Today, I mean yesterday (the Saturday) on the 11th day of the editing I'm almost done working with the visual element. I even started to check out some collections of sound from sound effect libraries. Now I really see that I'm getting closer to the completion. My "editor's butt" doesn't hurt as much anymore since the second week and though there are still some days of work left, I'll probably miss this eventually, once all is done. I'll be relieved but sad at the same time. But first, it has to be done, so I'll go back there again tomorrow...