［日本語 – http://hiyoriartcenter.com］

Build with Light, an exhibition of video works, photographs, ink drawings and interactive light projections by Richard Byers. With music collaborations with Yukki (Coupie) and Yuka.

The exhibition is on now until the 12 May 2013. open daily 11am – 7pm [ closed Wednesday and Thursdays]

I made this short timelapse video to share the beautiful sunlight that rises through the gallery on sunny days.

Please enjoy and if you can make it to Ishinomaki, come into the gallery and paint a wooden pixel block for the window, or investigate the details of the ink drawings with a magnifying glass, or sit and relax to the music by Yukki and Yuka and share a coffee with me.

Richard Byers
リチャード・バイヤーズ

The first project started straight off the the plane! I was driven from the Narita airport doors to  Fukagawa Ippuku gallery in Tokyo for delivering 8 photographs from my Ishinomaki Sunlight series. The charity exhibition supports projects in Tohoku region. 6 – 10 March, open daily from 12 – 7pm.
more information here http://www.fukagawa-ippuku.jp/en/index.html

An exhibition of my photographs and videos from my experience living in Ishinomaki in 2012 opened in Sydney at Gaffa Gallery, 281 Clarence St on 10th January and closes on Monday 21st January 2013.

Please visit if you are in Sydney or know someone there.

All works are for sale through the gallery, and later through this website.

A very big thank you to Iwasaki-san, Suzuki-san, Serizawa-san and Izumi-san from Gallery éf, Tokyo for their work, support and financial assistance to help make this possible.

Re-Church is the restoration group’s website blog – http://rechurch-ishinomaki.blogspot.jp/ [日本語 Japanese only]

You can continue to support the restoration group through purchasing my postcards or calendars, and also you are invited to the Sydney exhibition opening 6pm on Thursday 10th January at Gaffa, Clarence St Sydney. [ http://www.gaffa.com.au/171181 ]

Set of 6 postcards of photographs from 石巻 Ishinomaki Sunlight project and series of exhibitions. Now available through the web shop.

Part of the sale from these postcards will be donated to a local citizen group restoring a tsunami damaged church. http://rechurch-ishinomaki.blogspot.jp/

Printed in Japan
Packaged by Richard in Australia
10 x 15 cm
250gsm paper
$10.00 including shipping in Australia, worldwide shipping available also.

Available currently are the set of 6 photographic postcards from the Ishinomaki Sunlight project. A calendar is coming soon, and donations are available also to help realise next years projects in Ishinomaki, including a book about sounds from Ishinomaki, and a collaborative performance with a local Taiko group in September 2013.

Thank you so much for any support you might consider.

Tokyo, Japan
Gallery éf, Asakusa

Wed. 24 October – Sun. 25 November 2012
12:00 – 20:00 ( -17:00 on the final day)
closed on Tuesdays, entrance free

Australian new media artist Richard Byers presents his days in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture in Japan, after the disaster in March 2011, by photograph and video work.

In most of his works he touches “light” to create resonance within our world and our sense of it. From the 11th of April 2011 he created a public interactive light installation onto a tsunami damaged building (Ishinomaki Saint John the Apostle Orthodox Church, built in 1880) in Ishinomaki, collaborating with local musicians, dancers and citizens. Future collaborations in Ishinomaki are gradually developing.

In his days in Ishinomaki, he was fascinated by the view seen from the top of Umakko-yama, located in a suburb of the city. The simple and everyday rise and fall of the sun across rivers and rice fields, mountain cherry blossoms, common grasses, people’s daily acts and prayer. These things, that mass media often bypasses in favour of sensation, were seen simply from on this local hill.

The exhibition “Ishinomaki SUNLIGHT” shows 10 prints that Byers photographed and brought in his pocket, and video work filmed with manual focus camera. Local musicians collaborated with their music for the films ambient soundtrack.

The venue is a renovated art space “Gallery éf” in Asakusa, which is originally a clay warehouse built in 1868. The house survived two great fires, earthquake in 1923 and Tokyo bombing in 1945.

You’ll meet the light that embraces the days, as it is, through two places where Byers has been guided by his senses.

music: Yukki (Coupie) / Yuka – piano
special thanks to: Yukki (Coupie)/ Ishinomaki Saint John the Apostle Orthodox Church Restoration citizen’s group/ Ayako Suzuki/ Emiko Iwasaki/ Hikaru Serizawa/ Ishinomaki laboartory / Takeshi Kanno