ROOM 23　TAKAYUKI YAGI

Takayuki Yagi was born in Gunma Prefecture in 1971. He graduated from Tokyo Zokei University’s Department of Sculpture in 1997. In 2001, he completed the CCA Kitakyushu fellowship program. In 2012, he founded the art centre ya-gins on Benten Street, Maebashi’s central shopping arcade. In 2015, he launched the nonprofit organisation Maebashi Art Practice (map) as its chief director. His major solo exhibitions include Benten (ya-mans, Gunma, 2006) and The Island in a Room 2001–2006 (AIS gallery, Gunma, 2016). His major group exhibitions include The Flower with the Color of Wind: Dialogues for the Future (Arts Maebashi, Gunma, 2013); Fetal Movement (53 Art Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2015); Arts of Gunma 2017 (Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, 2017); and REBORN ART FESTIVAL 2017 (Ishinomaki City, 2017). In 2018, he won the Jomo Arts and Culture Prize. His art centre ya-gins has held more than forty exhibitions featuring local and international artists, and Maebashi Art Practice (map) functions as a space for artists of all ages and genres to present their work.

In 2002, Yagi began his “B3 Project”, in which he carries a backpack which functions as a boat and bathtub to various places to boil water and bathe. Bathing is a daily ritual that puts us in the most personal and vulnerable state possible, and performing it deep in the mountains or within shopping arcades humorously indicates the inviolability of nature and society against the actions of a single individual. It can also be interpreted as an act that blurs the boundaries between private and public, or nature and urban living. B3 project Akagi was taken at Mount Akagi, which can be seen north of the Shiroiya Hotel. B2 project Benten, taken in 2006, was a project to reawaken local memories of the Benten public baths, which had disappeared more than twenty years ago at that time. The longitude and latitude of this room are engraved on the board on the wall, indicating the viewer’s current location. In B3 project Shiroiya, Yagi is seen bathing with three store owners from the shopping arcade bathe with Yagi on the Shiroiya Hotel grounds. Many people involved with the hotel are visible in the shot, and the city can be seen in the background. This embodies the hotel’s concept of connecting people, city, and nature, and will no doubt remain a starting point for memories of this area and the hotel.