What is the connection between Kampala in Uganda, Fukushima in Japan and New Orleans in America? Tsuyoshi Ozawa links these seemingly disparate places in his ongoing series "Vegetable Weapons". The shape of a gun is formed out of local vegetables and photographed, before it's taken apart and the same vegetables become the ingredients for a dinner party.
Ozawa sensitively approaches historical subjects in the realities of the present. His recent projects include a story based on the life of a Japanese scientist who studied yellow fever in Ghana 100 years ago, and a mountain made from more than 100 futons for children in Fukushima to play on. His artworks each feel like a strikingly different color in a loosely connected rainbow. He has little pretense, a youthful spirit and is easy talk to.
You work with historical subjects using the language of social practice art. Is there something that you want to reinsert into the past?
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