ABSTRACT
In the 17th century, Japanese poet Basho set out on foot across the country, composing haiku as nature and humanity along his path inspired and provoked him. During his Bridge Me Japan project, Argentinian-born, Miami-Beach-based contemporary artist Gabriel Delponte traverses Japan by bicycle, embracing ancient and modern technological methods of communication and collapsing barriers between seemingly isolated and drifting cultural systems. Through interactions with inhabitants, Delponte serves as a courier of information from place to place and from generation to generation. The Bridge Me Japan project allows a global audience to communicate with Delponte online in an interactive manner. Bridge Me Japan will culminate in a documentary film about transference and cultural communication starting on September 5, 2014, at 9:00 a.m GMT.
WHERE
Starting from the city of Fujisawa, Japan, Delponte travels to the south through the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, to the southernmost island chain of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa. Then, he continues his journey across the Japanese archipelago to the island of Hokkaido and to the isolated northern islands of Etorofu-to. This Island is also called the South Kuril Islands, where Japanese people have lived for generations despite the Russian Federation being granted sovereignty after World War II. These islands and three others, Kunashiri-to, Shikotan-to, and Habomai-shoto are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and are accessed through Russia.
The Symbol of the Peace City of Fujisawa.
Fujisawa makes much of Peace and International Exchanges. In June 1982, Fujisawa made a Declaration for Peace and the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons based on the citizen’s desire for peace. In addition, Fujisawa started a sister-city relationship and cultural exchange with Miami Beach, Florida, the U.S.A., in 1959.
HOW
STOP TIME CAPSULE TRAILER: Semi. (cicada)
For Bridge Me Japan, Delponte designed and built an ultra-lightweight, efficient trailer that is attached to his bicycle. The trailer is representative of a time capsule, a gathering site for information and material about a particular moment of history, supported by various sophisticated technological communication devices and necessary gear for the trip.
The trailer is bound for Delponte and his travels by simple construction pulled behind a fully manual mode of transportation: the bicycle. The trailer bears the Japanese symbol for Peace.
Bridge Me Japan explores how and what kinds of communication and interaction are essential for survival and efficiency in the context of being exposed on the road as a courier, exposing basic truths about human interaction as an inspiration source.
WHAT
In addition to Delponte’s face-to-face interactions, the Bridge Me Japan project includes other communication elements: Art, the “Letter Project,” interactive communication, and a documentary film.
THE LETTER PROJECT
During his journey, Delponte solicits hand-written letters from individuals to be read to individuals of different generations at subsequent stops. These hand-written letters evoke a timeless communication strategy at its most basic but with a unique theme: to encourage communication between generations. Delponte acts as a courier as did the “Hikyaku”, the messengers for centuries in Japan. The Letter Project has the capacity to transcend the complex barriers built between generations with the rise of electronic communications technologies, which have served to isolate older generations.
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C-Print on aluminium
PROJECT PRESENTED BY:
Device, image, behavior, performance, sculpture, music, architecture, writing, interactive networks
“A contemporary artist’s cycling journey, north to south, in Japan in search of communication.”
Stories from the road
From Fujisawa to Yokohama.
Yokohama was a small fishing village until the end of the feudal Edo period. A significant turning point in Japanese history happened in 1853–54, when Commodore Matthew Perry arrived just south of Yokohama with a fleet of American warships, demanding Japan open several ports for commerce. Yokohama was the first city to be opened for trading.
November 2014 Report.
The BridgeMeJapan Project began over three years ago in Miami. The trailer design (Semi) began a week after the tsunami hit Fukushima in March of 2011. At that time, only a week passed after the big waves hit the coast when my brother called me from Argentina around 4 a.m., asking me if I had heard from my friends in Japan.
The ride began.
I arrive in Enoshima. Wow, that was fast; I am lightning-fast. No, Gabriel, it is called adrenaline.
It was a sunny day with no wind or clouds, no showdowns in the diagonal, and the sun above me, and I was sweating like a pig. The only shade right is below the cars. It was noon, the sun was up, and the humidity had cleared up.
