Hirokazu Kosaka

Hirokazu Kosaka describes Ruin Map as "a collaborative effort between the Chinatown people, himself, the printer, and the paper maker." To create Ruin Map, Kosaka conducted workshops with Chinatown seniors, asking them to draw a simple map of their childhood town. The map drawings were collected and transferred onto large, 24" by 24" wood blocks. These blocks were then used to make ink prints on handmade Japanese reed paper. According to Kosaka, "The maps have an unfinished feel to them to leave viewers with room to remember their own childhoods."

Interview

Please explain the process you used for creating your piece (materials used, major steps).

I collected drawings of maps from the elders. These map drawings will be blown up to 24 by 24 inch drawings. Then they will be carbon copied to wood, and I've hired a printer to cut the drawing into the wood and then to print it. This project was a collaboration with the Chinatown people, myself and printer, and a paper maker. Paper is very valuable to me. The paper used for this project was made for me by a paper maker in Japan. I asked him to make it for me about a year and a half ago. Paper needs fiber and this paper is from a particular Japanese reed. There are many different kinds of reeds to choose from, but I wanted this special reed called mitsu mata.

How did you come up with the concept for your piece?

I first got the idea for this project because my third grade teacher asked my class to do it. We asked our grandparents to draw maps for us and we saw much our village had changed. I did this with seniors in Los Angeles. I just came back from Seattle, Washington and I maybe doing this map project there too for the Seattle Asia Museum.

How does your piece fit with the goals for In/flux?

When my third grade class did this project, we, as the next generation, saw that life is impermanent and constantly changing. In/flux is about seeing a community as always changing.

Why does your piece belong in Chinatown?

I come from a Buddhist monastery. No one asks questions why or what because this is ego. When you ask a question your own ego is the appetite for the answer and therefore I was not trained to ask questions. Why does my art belong to Chinatown is pretty much an egotistical question. I never had a chance to question that question. This is my answer to your question.

Did the process of creating your piece (retreats) change your perception of Chinatown and did you make any relationships with people in Chinatown or generally with the community?

Last time when I was there, we had 10 people drawing the map, put their whole feeling of their childhood in their map. They told me about their childhood when they were 10 years old, and some of them are now 70 years old. They went back 60 years to remember their town. It's amazing, a lot of stuff comes out. This piece doesn't tell you who they are but it tells me who I am. It's not my egotistical artwork. This is different between eastern art and western art. Western tells you who they are, eastern art tells me who I am. In an eastern landscape, there are no people, maybe just a tiny dot fishing in a stream. This shows a humble notion of human beings versus nature. When you look at these painting you become the painting. It lets you finish the work, you're so involved. It's usually unfinished, it let's you finish it. You understand yourself. Western art has no space to move. If you look at a map, black and white, you start to realize what your childhood was. This is not my work. It is everyone's work. This art is not for a gallery space, it's for a laundry area, banks, restaurants, where all the people go to. Bank, church, temple, restaurant, sushi bar. In Los Angeles I put the maps where people gather and go. The context is not an art space. The maps are not even decoration. I really enjoyed having it in a barbershop.

How does this work fit with your wider body of work?

My work is very personal and a lot of my work does not belong to galleries or any museum, it belongs to the heart of community.