In Basho's Footsteps - art inspired by 2000km trek around Japan

Art inspired by a 2000 km trek around Japan

In Basho's Footsteps

Coburg House Gallery, 15 Coburg Street, Leith, EH6 6ET

Aug 21th – Aug 25th

11am – 5pm

Exhibition Opening Thursday 20 August, 7pm, exquisite images and sushi

Artists Anya Gleizer and Pablo F. Valcarce are certainly driven. They used crowd-funding to enable this exhibition then hiked for three months covering 2,000km around Japan through remote mountains and along coastlines that have been decimated by the tsunami in 2011.

Their aim was to cover the footsteps of the 17th century haiku poet Matsuo Basho and learn from local artists, Zen monks, nature and their own isolation.

"Our journey had no destination, so the travelling became a goal in and of itself." Explains Gleizer. "When we abandoned all goals and plans, we got closer to the state of awareness that Basho deemed necessary to make art".

This quest to understand Basho's approach to art and nature has generated the artists first solo exhibition in the UK. Gleizer and Valcarce´s work reflects a search for a stillness that remains unchanged since Basho´s time, in a fast-changing contemporary world.

In an installation combining age-old traditions and new technology, performance, video, and old Japanese methods of printmaking, the artists explore the themes of Basho´s work, but also the vast distance time and globalization have created between the ancient and modern Japan.

'Enormous youthful energy.' - Diario Crítico

'A great success.' - Il Fatto Quotidiano

'Great project' - Open Culture

Notes for Editors:

• In Basho's Footsteps' Kickstarter campaign became the highest funded crowd funding campaign of Scotland in the art category,
• Gleizer and Valcarce are co-founders of Streams and Mountains, an artist collective dedicated to art and travel.
• Opening: Aug 20th at 7pm.
• You can find pictures of the artwork in Dropbox link http://bit.ly/1MhE1Nv
• Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/117623785250711/

Contact: Pablo Fernández Velasco

M: 07856023337

E: p.fernandezvelasco@gmail.com

W: streamsandmountains.com