Review of mac birmingham's 'THE PLAYMAKERS' (Sat 7 Jul – Sun 9 Sep 2012)

Operating out of Tokyo’s Kusoge suburb, KOSUGE1-16 is a husband-and-wife duo renowned for their adventurous and interactive art. A glance at their website yields works such as a larger-than-life table football assembly, manned by up to 12 competing children, as well as an equally impressive and interactive Scalextric-esque cycledrome. Their first exhibition outside Japan is based in the Midlands Art Centre (mac) in Birmingham’s beautiful Cannon Hill Park. During the last few weeks of my tenancy in the West Midlands I was fortunate enough to visit the installation as part of a group of Japanese students and Japan aficionados.

It’s immediately obvious why the exhibition is titled THE PLAYMAKERS: children are EVERYWHERE. There is a tangible atmosphere of excitement and curiosity inside the exhibition hall; even the stewards couldn’t resist an occasional tug on a string (though I never saw one making use of the slide). Separated by a bridge modelled on a fixture of the surrounding parkland, two enormous mobiles constitute the mainstay of the installation. From these dangle an array of models designed by local schoolchildren and sculpted by artists Chishino Kurumada and Takashi Tsuchiya during the month they spent in residence at the mac. These many figures are certainly inventive, but the real fun is to be had beneath them. Multitudes of ropes link disparate parts of the exhibition to the viewer, with each tug activating some facet of the installation. Experimenting with different ropes is a must: some have obvious clues attached to them, but for the most part the outcome is unknown. A pagoda, housing mac founder John English, is festooned with moving parts and marionettes. My favourite rope, when tugged, caused a small wooden squirrel to drink from a tiny milk carton. I won’t go into any further detail, as the artwork should be seen (and exhaustively played with) rather than heard of!

During the visit I was introduced to two Daiwa Foundation Tohoku scholars, Hiromi and Kazuki, and in turn introduced them to two of my friends, Sarah and Vicky. Sarah had spent some months studying at Akita International University in Tohoku, and the resulting conversations served as a useful reminder of how much we both needed to practise our conversational Japanese. We were also fortunate enough to meet the artists who are remaining in residence for the duration of the exhibition, along with their two children. On seeing the fun the visitors were having amongst their work, their happiness was both evident and genuine.

I’ve already suggested a visit to THE PLAYMAKERS to family members in Birmingham, who can now also pass on their recommendations. The exhibition is open until September 9th and entry is free of charge. Make sure to bring along the child in you!

For more information about KOSUGE1-16, visit their website here.

For more information about THE PLAYMAKERS, visit the mac website here.

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation is supporting THE PLAYMAKERS.

Text by Luke Dabin, Daiwa Scholar 2012