We are pleased to announce that "Open Park MINE : Our Street Style Play" will be held at "MINE", an annex of Yamanaka Suplex, as part of the curatorial program vol.1 as the first installment. As a commemorative first step, we have invited independent curator Kaho Ikeda to plan an exhibition using the space of "MINE" from May 20 to 27, along with various events such as workshops, live performances and a pup-up bar during the exhibition period. We look forward to seeing you there. 

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Aokid (artist) and Yohei Kiyoyama (urban planning researcher) participate in “Open Park MINE : Our Street Style Play” and will hold an exhibition, performances, and workshops. Although they are from different fields, both work with a focus on the relationship between the urban landscape and its people. Aokid emphasizes physicality while Kiyoyama focuses on architectural and historical aspects. For this project, the curator facilitated a power-distributed, horizontal curation process, engaging in dialogue with both Aokid and Kiyoyama from the planning stage, and proceeding organically. 

MINE is a project space that retains the atmosphere of a former residence, with a large living room and an exhibition room coexisting in this unique building. In front of MINE, there is a public street and park, creating a location of contrast between the private buildings and adjacent public space. Going back in time, the area has a history of being on the periphery of a castle town where a brothel was located during the Edo period, and where a diverse range of people from inside and outside the castle town came and went.

 In this project, we use the word "street" to think about the locations where these various boundaries exist. The word "street" originally meant "a public road in a city or town," but for this exhibition, it refers to the perspective and improvisational approach of street artists who expand their creative possibilities with unique ideas in all kinds of conditions. In the exhibition room, which is imagined as a playground, Aokid and Kiyoyama will combine "street" with the "boundary lines" associated with MINE to express their ideas, resonating with the park in front of them. Their attempts may provide playful inspiration to our thoughts and bodies, and may even induce practical applications of everyday "street" practices.

Kaho Ikeda (Curator)

Curator Program vol.1

OPEN PARK MINE : Our Street Style Play

Period: 2023.5.20 [Sat] – 5.27 [Sat] 

Hours: 13:00 – 19:00

Venue: Yamanaka Suplex annex MINE 4F and 5F

Admission: Free 

Participating artists: Aokid, Yohei Kiyoyama

Curator: Kaho Ikeda 

Designer: Mami Shimizu

Photographer: Tomohiro Yamatsuki

Videographer: Nishi Junnosuke 

Related event cooperation: Moe Nakatani, Amateur Riot Radio

Organizer: Yamanaka Suplex

Co-organizer: NANEI ART PROJECT 

Cooperation: Research Group for Contemporary Urban Thermo-Locality

Grant: City of Osaka Subsidy for Artistic Projects and Activities, Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation

The Curator Program provides collaborative opportunities for emerging curators active in the field, and those who aim to become curators in the future, primarily with artists and cultural workers through situating themselves in the physical spaces and mutual communicating processes. The program offers a place for curatorial practices under site-specific conditions, taking into account the context, resources, and histories of the former residential MINE Building, where the landlord used to live on the 4th and 5th floors and various people lived on on the 3rd floor as residents.