Willie Xaiwouth

On this day, after a brief introduction to Laos and its bamboo culture, as well as his new artwork created during the residency, Xaiwouth organized a workshop where students crafted weaving patterns using colored papers.
*Saan means to weave in Lao language.

After having the audience look at the work freely, everyone gathered in the community space, where Xaiwouth showed photo slides to describe how he developed his art. Starting from introduction of bamboo species and bamboo crafts in Laos, the artist showed how he harvested bamboo in Fukuoka to make new artwork, as well as his research to Yame City and Saga Prefecture where he learned about mulberry paper and bamboo crafts.

Xaiwouth exhibited Legacy in Motion.
Photo by Kawasaki Ittoku

While cutting, shaping, and drying the bamboos, Xaiwouth worked on building the structure of the lantern.

On this day, Xaiwouth spent time seeing the overall process of making washi at Nao Tesuki Washi, starting from growing paper mulberry trees, one of the ingredients of washi, until a piece of paper is produced.

Xaiwouth visited several places in Yame, for his research on bamboo crafts and washi papers. Places of visit were; Yame Traditional Craftwork Center, Yame Tesuki Washi Shiryokan (hand-made paper craft center), Matsuo Washi Kobo (washi craft studio), Machiya Curation Omoyai (local products store), Ito Gonjiro Shoten(lantern shop), and Shiraki Ko-Gei (lantern shop).

On this day, Xaiwouth cut the madake bamboos, which is good for processing and making bamboo crafts. These madake as well as mosodake from Fukuoka he got in July are to be interlaced in his new artwork.

Artists were invited to join a gallery tour of the exhibition Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Best Collection Ⅲ Breaking the Conventional: New Self-Portraits, organized by the museum guide volunteers. After the tour, they joined a gathering where participants brought in food and enjoyed a casual conversation.

The tour began from Hakata-machiya Furusato-kan, a small museum that introduces the history and culture of Hakata, including local life and landscape especially in the Meiji and Taisho eras, along with the crafts of artisans. Next place Xaiwouth visited was the Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum, which works as a station to address the importance of peace. The last destination was the Kyosei-no-sato museum, located inside a renovated building of an old school in a rural area. There, Xaiwouth met Yanagi Kazunobu, an art director, and Oto Etsuko, a fashion designer and manager, both of whom guided the artists with detailed explanations.

At a camping site in Nokonoshima, Xaiwouth took time to see the madake bamboos used for bamboo crafts and fence, which he plans to combine with the moso-dake he got earlier for the new artwork.

During the talk, Willie explained his previous works including sculpture, photography, installation, and painting, which focused on themes such as memory and environmental change. The artist also mentioned that he hopes to interweave Laotian bamboo culture where he got much inspiration, and another material from Fukuoka in his new residency artwork.

ANON LIGHT BESPOKE is a studio based in Fukuoka where they work for designing and producing the lighting. Xaiwouth made a visit there and learned about many things, including washi papers and their materials, as well as ideas for lighting and their source of inspirations.

On this day, Xaiwouth made a visit to a bamboo forest in Fukuoka city, to gather the bamboo trees for his work, the material traditionally used both in his home country Laos as well as in Japan. Xaiwouth cut the bamboo tress by himself and took them back to studio.

Artists took time to see the collection show as well as some backyard facilities including the reference library, storage, archive, and shooting room, where they were given some detailed explanations from each appointed staff.

Xaiwouth met some museum staff and coordinators for the first time. After the orientation meeting and a guided tour in the museum, Xaiwouth biked around the area with other artists nearby Artist Cafe Fukuoka.