Arnemuidenproject

Since October 2003, I have been working on an independent project involving my own personal research in the small fishermen's village ('een stadje'=a small city) of Arnemuiden, Zeeland.

One might ask, what is the implication of 'my personal research' on Arnemuiden?

The first theme of Arnemuidenproject was 'to look for a myth in Holland'. I was aiming to find 'a myth'or 'mythical senses' in Arnemuiden through interviewing local people on their lives in the past and present. However, in the working process, my interest has developed a new perspective to deal with the life of people of Arnemuiden in comparison to the lives of the inhabitants of a small Fishermen's village in Japan (Kubotsu), that is, according to my childhood memories.

In my childhood, I spent quite some time in Kubotsu where my mother grew up. I lived most of my life in Tokyo, but my childhood memories of that village remain very precious to me. The gap between busy Tokyo urban life and mythical village on the southern island of Japan made quite an impression and had an emotional impact on me. All the local stories, images, feelings of people and landscape are quite abstract memories, but they seem to have grown stronger and stronger in my mind & body in recent years. And strangely enough, the research in Arnemuiden has been stimulating me to remember those memories,
as if I am looking for my own memories in Arnemuiden.

During the preparatory research, I collected materials at the Zeeland Archive. During the field research, I interviewed local people in Arnemuiden, and collected audio, video & film footages, personal memories and old photographs, etc. In March 2004, I travelled with a fishermen's boat to the North Sea to experience the life of fishermen nowadays.

In the new perspective of including my childhood memories of Kubotsu with the research in Arnemuiden, I have dealt with diverse collected materials as sources for my works. Materials vary from objective 'facts' to subjective 'memories and observation'. And works have grown into quite unique combinations, which consist of subjective, objective, collective and individual elements. I call this working process 'memory mapping'. It combines different memories of different people from different times, using the research in Arnemuiden as a basis.

'Memory mapping' becomes a new non-narrative tale where cross-cultural elements meet, through works such as drawing, text, book, video, animation and performance. A non-narrative tale, yet connected strongly to existing 'facts' and memories of people. Sooner or later, it will start crossing cultures, time & space and memories of people. This literal attempt will be realized in 'water memory mapping'. *

Some Dutch people find my use of 'Dutch traditional icons' in works 'refreshing', because 'it is an observation towards their culture with a foreign eye'. I will use what they call 'Dutch traditional icons' as triggers for the viewers to enter the world of 'memory mapping'. Through images which are familiar to people, they are introduced into another world, where meanings of those daily images are shifted into new ones. I believe strongly that those experiences can bring a new perception to our daily lives. I would like to deliver such experiences not only to local people in Arnemuiden, but also to any Dutch or non-Dutch viewer. Anyone might eventually begin to carry new individual memories triggerd by 'memory mapping'.

*'Water memory mapping' is the final presentation of the Arnemuidenproject, and will be a travelling boat exhibition from Amsterdam to Arnemuiden in May, June 2005. This presentation is the place for viewers to encounter the world of 'memory mapping'.

Takako Hamano April 2005