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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