Ari Tabei

Brooklyn, NY
Residency: April-May 2010

About the Artist:

Aricoco was born and raised in Tokyo, receiving her undergraduate education at Sophia University ( BA ’97.) Traveling back and forth between Tokyo and the United States, Ari attended the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Studio Art at Brandies University in 2001 and received her MFA from University of Connecticut in sculpture and video performance art in May 2007. She was awarded the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship for 2008/09. She participated in several residency programs including LMCC Swing Space, Vermont Studio Center, and Smack Mellon Studio Program.

Project Description:

Title: Unhappy Campers Chapter I

I started to work on a new series of garment and bag piece which will be in the form of a performance video and a book (in the future.) It will be consisted of 3 parts (3 chapters in total) and I worked on the first chapter at Sculpture Space. The story is about a wife who suffers from nature phobia and a husband who is obsessed with fitting himself out for possible urgent and hazardous situation.

Sculpture Space allowed me to invite my husband to work with me so we were able to build my new work, “Runaway Cart” (a third piece of my “Runaway Bag” series) to perform it for video. I created two gasmasks and garments for us to wear in video. Since the studio was in a little isolated and quite non-city area, I had to confront nature in a way I would have never experienced in a city. I was afraid of being around here but at the same time was very inspired and felt very sharp and fresh. Use of synthetic materials and found objects found in the area was emphasized in this work.

I was able to develop new ideas about making a book in conjunction of a performance video. I drew a lot during this residency to visualize my thoughts about the book. I appreciated very much the time and all the support that I received here at Sculpture Space.