NEWS_2008
WE INTEND TO START OUT FROM SMALL THINGS
THINGS THAT WE COULD DO.
Ebisu Liquidroom
「African JAG presents- If Streets Around the Globe Unite Hand in Hand」Report
Preceding the Dec 01 International AIDS Day, on November 22, a benefit live event organized by African JAG Project took place at Liquidroom in Ebisu (Tokyo).
Based on concept of call for halt to increasing HIV/AIDS as well as spreading awareness to the realities of people & children suffering from HIV/AIDS in Africa, internationally acclaimed artists stood up for our Project & gathered together transcending jenres.
Footages taken by African JAG staffs upon support activities in Africa were screened on monitors set in various spots inside the venue.
At the entrance hall, a huge painting by Jun Sawada who is also a core member of the Project was displayed on the wall, African art & accessory charity merch booth was set (20% of the total sales to be donated to African JAG), condoms by courtesy of Japan Foundation for AIDS Prevention were distributed, spreading awareness to HIV/AIDS problem in various different ways.
Seeing the World AIDS Day on December 01 coming just around the corner, African JAG Project will be organizing a special event at LIQUIDROOM in Ebisu (Tokyo) to spread awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well as the tragic realities the epidemic is causing in African countries, especially targeted to the young generations in Japan that HIV/AIDS rate is still showing a dark rise.
The special event will feature artists & creators from various fields & jenres who have offered their contributions to African JAG Project..Seeing the World AIDS Day on December 01 coming just around the corner, African JAG Project will be organizing a special event at LIQUIDROOM in Ebisu (Tokyo) to spread awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well as the tragic realities the epidemic is causing in African countries, especially targeted to the young generations in Japan that HIV/AIDS rate is still showing a dark rise.
The special event will feature artists & creators from various fields & jenres who have offered their contributions to African JAG Project.
Waseda University Festival 2008-African JAG young easel "TRIP TO AFRICA" Report
On 2nd & 3rd of November (sun+mon), “Waseda University Festival 2008” took place at Waseda University campus in Tokyo.
As African JAG have been sensing the need of more awareness amongst students & young generations that the issues that Africa enfolds are not something distant as Japan & Africa is in geographical distance, but it’s real & happening right now on this same planet, the University’s art activity club knocked on our door.
We came to agreement that we both wanted to make it an exhibition that would lead to a bright future by first showing the African art which is a “bright side” of Africa to make people feel closer to the continent, and then enter into the issues that whole continent suffers from.
Both days of the festival was sunny & sky clear, the attractive African colors shone even more beautiful within the gentle autumn sunlight, and a total of 500 people visited our exhibition in 2 days, enabling us to spread the experience of both “light” & “darkness” of Africa.
Our exhibition entitled ”TRIP TO AFRICA,” took place in a classroom, and by displaying brightly colored textiles & art/crafts such as unique artworks & adorable wooden statues all from Africa, created an unusually healing space for everyone.
Such effects & displays can be see from in & out of the building, and the exhibition space was filled with people attracted by the beauty of African art.
Scattering bits & pieces of ideas, the whole place was created so that people could feel “Africa” from everywhere, which was well received by visitors who also liked the fact that they could take time & see the artworks from various angles. People amused & enjoyed the unique colorings & original methods of Nigeria’s Osogbo artworks, and items such as a huge, heavy-duty ancient indigo costume with complicated embroidery in front, eye-blindingly colorful beads artworks, and accurately hand-stitched artworks raised voices of admirations.
People also enjoyed African musical instruments that we displayed to be freely touched & played, as well as the referential books of African arts on the center table for people to leaf over. In the area where we displayed the photos of the children taken by African JAG Project staff upon support activities, people read the messages placed under each photo, realized the harsh realities they are placed in, and the fact that they wear the world’s best smiles on their faces regardless of their situations, seem to cause mixed feelings & emotions to a lot of the visitors…
And as they see the video footages of the true Africa from the monitor, they left us considerate comments such as “I want to go to Africa & see it with my own eyes,” and “I just realized how fortunate I am.”
A lot of the visitors who caught the messages & realities from these photos and footages willed to made their contributions into the donation box set at the exit of the exhibition. There were those who told us it’s their first time to donate as they dropped their coins into the box, and even an elementary school kid asking her parents that she wants to donate. We felt that African JAG & young easel’s thoughts & messages have definitely reached to the people through this exhibition.
Through this exhibition, we were able to raise a total donation of 6,961yen.
The total number of visitors were unexpectedly high, it went well over 500in 2 days.We cordially would like to thank everyone who visited the exhibition, and the whole young easel crew.
* Please see Financial Report for accountings on donations made to African JAG.
Osaka "ZETTAI-MU 13th Anniversary" Report
September 20 (sat), the ex-Namura Shipbuilding Factory in Osaka. Using a set of 3 venues - BLACK CHAMBER, studio PARATITTA & WHITE CHAMBER- and inviting cream of talented artists that represents the real Japanese club scene, the 13th Anniversary party of “ZETTAI-MU” led by DJ KURANAKA opened.
And at a corner of huge space right next to the venue WHITE CHAMBER appeared the African JAG booth. Maximum cordial thanks to DJ KURANAKA…who offered us to take part, with enthusiastic intention to spread awareness of the realities existing on this globe amongst young club generations. In fact, a lot of the people who came to the party showed interest in the activities of African JAG.
At this party, African JAG concentrated in making a visual approach based on concept of “spread awareness of realities around the world through expression,” displaying photos of African children on one side & showing video footages of Africa on an adjacent wall, all taken by African JAG upon support visits to Africa.
People initially seemed to walk past by like they do to any other booths, but a lot of them came to halt as they see the messages from the children placed under each photos, and faces turned serious. And received various spontaneous questions such as “how can a life be saved by 50yen?” (after seeing our one-coin campaign banner “Lives can be saved by a 50yen”).
As we explained that with 50yen, people could see a doctor for AIDS check-ups, the realities in Malawi that people are left to die just because they can’t afford the transportation fee to the hospital, and that part of the sales from this booth will be donated to help such people, lots of donations were made to the calabash that we set as our donation box.
At the center of the booth, we set a merchandize table of African accessories & original greeting cards. Displayed were handmade African accessories such as bracelets made of cowrie shells, cow bone earrings, and necklaces of old beads & brass, greeting cards featuring prints of works by Nigeria’s Osogbo artists, as well as the benefit CD “African JAG vol.1” that DJ KRUSH & Shing02 who performed at the party are involved, and the skater team MAZE x JAG collabo DVD. Part of the sales of all these merch goods was also donated to African JAG.
At the live painting space located further into the booth area, a painter & one of the main African JAG members, Jun Sawada took part. The space was provided to 5 groundbreaking live painters, and june surely grabbed hold of huge attention with his original & distinctive world on the canvas.
The calabash donation box was also set at the side of Jun’s painting space, which also collected a great amount of donations from the people enjoying the live paintings.
Triggered by the photography, visual footage, art, craft, and their colors & messages, young clubbers who tend to perceive global issues as someone else’s matters in everyday life, unexpectedly showed a great interest to what we do. It was extremely encouraging and impressive to see them spontaneously walk up to the donation box & to our booth.
From this party, the amount of donations we made from the sales (20% as donation) & the donation boxes summed up to 16,348 yen. Once again, we would like to thank DJ KURANAKA & the whole ZETTAI-MU crew, and everyone there who showed interest to African JAG.
* Please see Financial Report for accountings on donations made to African JAG.
African JAG into the DAnca Scene!
After collaborations with various creators from music, skaters & art, JAG Project has now made its collaboration with dancers, a totally new field within the various JAG activities. Hand in hand with the dance unit VEKROTZ consisting of dancers KETZ & VERONICA known for backing various live shows & TV commercials, JAG took part in one of the top domestic dance events, throwing questions & fund raising through “expression.”
At 11pm, the door opened and the entrance gate was soon filled with people not only kids but also people in various age groups. Entering the gate is the area we exhibited the photos of the everyday lives of the children in Africa. The photos depicting the reality of hunger in every dry season and children trying to live strong after losing their parents were displayed along with the captions stating the “voices” of such children to be delivered to the crowd.Further into the venue, set at a corner of the hallway space between the entrance & the live floor was a special stage for VEKROTZ decorated with colorful African textiles. At around midnight as the entrance hall started to fill with mixture of dancing headz taking a break from the live floor & new arrivals, the VEKROTZ wearing the African dress in their original style stepped up on the special stage. With the art collective SHINKILOW providing a great lighting effect that hints the shower of sunlight through leaves of a huge tree, the two dancers performed.
Backed by tracks from 『African JAG vol.1』 compilation album, VEKROTZ mystically danced, and aggressively at times. Attracted by their performance, people gathered at once, and soon the special stage was surrounded by walls of people, fascinated by the illusive surprise.
Following the performance, VEKROTZ stepped off stage & into the crowd holding an African music instrument made of calabash decorated with beads as “donation box,” and walked around as they called out for “1-Coin Donation.” “Live that can be saved by 50yen”…the two dancers made appeal to each & every one in the crowd for cooperation & the value of a 50yen. That moved the hearts of many, and countless people spontaneously came up to them to donate their coins into the donation box. Meanwhile, at the JAG booth nearby the special stage, visual footages revealing severe realities of African people were shown, and flyers & booklets to promote African JAG activities were distributed. At the same time, we also set a space selling Africangoods to show the bright sides of Africa, which is also an accessible/familiar way for people to be a part of our support activity (20% of the sales will be donated to be used for African JAG support activities). Colorful textiles & accessories from Africa as well as greeting cards of African artworks were sold. Quite a lot of people stopped in front of the unique & original African goods, some extended their interests for accessories to African JAG activities, and there were also people who donated their change after purchasing the goods saying “please let me make my contribution too.”
As the event came to its end, RAHA, the organizer of the night, and ZEEBRA, the guest of the night, called out to everyone in the live floor introducing JAG & its booth, and for everyone’s contribution, while VEKROTZ did their 3rd performance for the night.
All these cooperation & efforts from everyone made further result, more people checked the JAG booth as they leave the venue, some came running up to the calabash donation box saying “here it is!” to add their coins.
It was the very first activity within the dance scene for JAG, but thanks to VEKROTZ who gave us the enthusiastic collaboration offer, it turned out to be a successful approach into the new field. In addition to the performance on special stage, VEKROTZ also jumped into the audience giving out messages & calling out for donations, which made a lot of the people in the audience to feel closer to African issues & the act of support itself. It made us realize once again how important a person-to-person message delivery could be, and the power that’s being created when streets unite hand in hand.
The total amount of fund we raised at this event is JPY 38,458 + NT$1 (New Taiwan Dollar). This fund will be used for children suffering in severe life environments.
African JAG Project is open to various types of collaborations with creators from various fields. For offers & ideas for possible collaborations, please do not hesitate to contact us at African JAG Project at your convenience.
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