AIR 2018

Shiro Masuyama

Residency Duration: 24 February – 30 March 2018

Shiro Masuyama (b. 1971, Tokyo, Japan) who is currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland since 2010 through the international residency program with the Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin (2006) and Flax Art Studios (2009). His artistic practice has mainly developed through numerous residencies undertaken all around the world. With a MA in Architecture, his art projects therefore have been much influenced by, and mainly manifest as site-specific interventions.

He is driven by a fascination and desire to develop art works in relation to how he can survive, communicate and make art outside Japan. Having settled in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2010, Shiro’s practice has become far more exposed to Irish / British (Northern Irish) culture and society. His practice has become more performative in response to his need to understand his physical living environment.

Shiro gave an artist talk at Lostgens’ on the 07 March on how he developed his artistic strategy responding to the environment of Kuala Lumpur relating to his previous works and experience. At the end of his residency, he presented an exhibition Encounter (24 – 29 March). During the opening reception, he hired an Indian Muslim cook to prepare the food, with logos signifying No Pork and No Beef that he designed, as a performative act to use food as a bridge for intercultural encounters. This was a response from his residency experience where he observed, due to racial and religious differences, Malaysians (Malay, Chinese and Indian) weren’t really able to sit and eat together. Therefore he wanted to address this social divisiveness and intercultural barrier.

Lostgens’ Artist Residency Project 2018
Supported by Japan Foundation Asia Center, Grant & Fellowship Programs

Maike Häusling

Residency Duration: August – October 2018

Maike Häusling (b.1974, Köln Germany) studied at University of Art and Design in Offenbach (Germany), she is based in Frankfurt am Main working at Basis e.V. She is a multimedia artist that uses painting, sculpturing, installation, video, as well as collaborating with other artistic disciplines.

She is working in the fields of installation, painting, video but is also collaborating with other artistic disciplines and expanding her work fields to sounds and acoustics. Her main interests lay in the relationship between things and their surroundings, in constructing new contexts and in the critical analysis of means and forms.

During her stay in Kuala Lumpur, Maike Häusling got to know and experience new cultures and languages. Her trip also turned into a journey of collecting sounds and architectural photographs as well as capturing the opposing sites of a city that is in the midst of a radical changing process. She was especially fascinated by the dense and convoluted architectural landscapes. She presented the details of this photographical cityscape accompanied by a sound collage by the Malaysian sound artist Goh Lee Kwang, creating a site-specific installation as part of her final presentation entitled “Can/Cannot” at the end of her residency. 

„CAN / CANNOT“ is a typical proverb in Kuala Lumpur that can be understood with any linguistic background and is often used for fast communication. The title of the exhibition shows the characteristics of the metropolis with its diverse cultures and religions – the living side by side and at the same time apart from each other, the simultaneous stepping aside and overlapping, and creating something new and unique in the same moment. The exhibition opened to the public from 27 Oct – 10 November.

Kuala Lumpur Lostgens’ X Frankfurt Basis and Goethe Institut AIR Collaboration Project