古国府 薫
映像作家/ディレクション/アニメーション
話や音楽などを視覚化する事、映像化する事、物質に命を吹き込む事に情熱がある。
ヨーロッパとアジアでアートとアニメーションを学ぶ。スウェーデン国立美術工芸大学Konstfack(コンストファック)のストーリーテリング科で「口承伝と土地の素材」を題材に修士を取得後、スウェーデン王立美術院にて素材とストップモーションの可能性について研究。
長期プロジェクトである滞在型のアニメーション制作では、様々な土地に赴き、土地にまつわる神話や伝承をもとに現地で集めた物質をアニメーションの素材として使用し、短編映画、インスタレーション展示、ミュージックビデオやビデオアート等のオーディオビジュアル体験を作る。
制作作品の国際映画祭での上映や展示などに加えて、近年はアニメーションを使った企業とのコラボレーション、コマーシャル、ゲームのビジュアル、ワークショップ、また長編映画制作のメインアニメーターを務めるなど、幅広く活動を展開している。2019年度の映像作家100に選出。
近年は、スロバキアとスウェーデンで短編映画の監督・制作をすすめている。
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Education
2015 – 2016 Royal Institute of Art, Program for professional artist’s development, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 – 2014 MFA, Konstfack University College of Art, Craft and Design, Storytelling, Stockholm, Sweden
2007 – 2009 Osaka College of Art, Animation, Osaka, Japan
2004 – 2006 Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
2001 – 2002 Chelsea College of Arts, Foundation course, London, England
Selected film festivals/screenings
2018 Animation Volda Festival (Volda, Norway)
2018 12th IFEMA International Female Film Festival Malmö (Malmö, Sweden)
2017 Odense International Film Festival (Odense, Denmark)
2017 Viborg Animation Festival (Viborg, Denmark)
2017 Re Anima Film Festival (Bergen, Norway)
2017 Anim!Arte ( Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brazil)
2017 Void International Animation Film Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2016 Bogotá Music Video Festival (Bogota, Colombia)
2016 Locomoción Experimental Animation Festival (Mexico City, Mexico)
2016 6th StopTrik International Film Festival (Maribor, Slovenia / Lodz, Poland)
2016 BANJALUKA International Animated Film Festival (Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
2016 European Animated Film Festival BALKANIMA (Novi Beograd, Serbia)
2016 33rd Tehran International Short Film Festival (Tehran, Iran)
2016 Music Festival O Sol da Caparica (Lisbon, Portugal)
2016 Fest Anča International Animation Festival (Zilina, Slovakia)
2016 London Shows International Film Festival (London, England)
2016 MONSTRA Lisbon Animated Film Festival (Lisbon, Portugal)
2010 Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival (Toronto, Canada)
2009 Sapporo International Short Film Festival (Sapporo, Japan)
Selected exhibitions
2018 Höstglöd (Enköping, Sweden)
2018 Fluid State, Atrier 35 (Bucharest, Romania)
2018 Gojo short animation gallery Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan)
2017 International biennale of glass Bulgaria 2017 (Sofia, Bulgaria)
2017 The Royal Institute of Art Spring Exhibitions 2017 (Stockholm, Sweden)
2016 Solo exhibition “Story Time”, Kino Art (Brno, Czech Republic)
2016 Group exhibition “Rundgång”, Royal Institute of Art, (Stockholm, Sweden)
2015 Solo exhibition “Tryptokos”, Šopa Gallery (Košice, Slovakia)
2015 Solo exhibition “Kaoru Animation”, Bielanoc, Kino Usmev (Košice, Slovakia)
2015 FESTIVAL UMENÍ KONFRONTÁCIE, November (Nitra, Slovakia)
2015 Multimediálny koncertný “Slavapolis” (Bratislava, Slovakia)
2014 Solo exhibition “Dlhý, Široký a Bystrozraký” (Košice, Slovakia)
2013 Solo exhibition, Gallerouge #3 (Stockholm, Sweden)
2013 Group exhibition “Nonsense”, Bologna Children’s Book Fair (Bologna, Italy)
2012 Group exhibition “Sound, Sense and Space” (Berlin, Germany)
2011 Group exhibition, Religare Art Residency (New Delhi, India)
2010 Group exhibition, Koukan-ten, (Osaka, Japan)
2010 “Striped Tiger and White Rabbit”, MHz networks TV Network Broadcast (USA)
2009 Group exhibition, Art Link (Tokyo, Japan)
2008 Group exhibition, Suntory Museum Tempozan (Osaka, Japan)
2007 Group exhibition, Film Cocktail (Osaka, Japan)
Awards and grants
2019 Selected for Japanese Motion Graphic Creators 100 (Japan)
2018 Konstnärsnämnden | The Swedish Arts Grants Committee (Sweden)
2017 “Art award” at The GIFs 2017 | Adobe x GIFMAGAZINE contest
2017 Konstnärsnämnden | The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
2017 HELGE AX:SON JOHNSONS STIFTELSE (Sweden)
2015 EU Japan Fest (Japan)
2014 Filmmaker residency (Košice, Slovakia)
2014 BBC Worldwide’s Creative Challenge (England)
2011 Religare Art Residency Programme (New Delhi, India)
2009 Tsukamoto Educational Institution Alumni Association Chairman Award (Japan)
2007 Kyoritsu International Foundation Fellowship (Japan)
Residencies
2018 Glass residency (Bucharest, Romania)
2017 NipponNordic – Universe Accelerator (Viborg, Denmark)
2014-2015 Filmmaker residency (Košice, Slovakia)
2013 “Contemporary Past”, Nida Art Colony (Nida, Lithuania)
2011 Religare Art Residency Programme (New Delhi, India)
Performances
2015 “Bohemian Forest”, Tabačka Kulturfabrik (Kosice, Slovakia)
2015 “Bohemian Forest” Klub (Kosice, Slovakia)
2014 “Ett minne från rymden”, Umeå 2014 European Capital of Culture (Umeå, Sweden)
2013 Storsjöyran Festival (Östersund, Sweden)
2013 “Traces of the Sun and the Moon”, Fasching (Stockholm, Sweden)
2013 “Two Picassos and Two Laundry Ladies”, New Sound Made Jazz Festival, Södra Teatern (Stockholm,Sweden)
Selected workshops and talks
2019 Facilitator for Animated Learning Labo, Culture City of East Asia 2019 Toshima (Tokyo, Japan)
2018 Biratori 2-day animation workshop (Biratori, Japan)
2016 Origami animation workshop for kids, “World Children Day” held by Embassy of Japan in the Slovak Republic, International House of Art for Children Bibiana (Bratislava, Slovakia)
2015 Pecha Kucha Night Kosice #37 (Košice, Slovakia)
2015 Animation Workshop for kids, Tabačka Kulturfabrik (Košice, Slovakia)
2014 Two-day animation puppet making workshop, Kasárne Kulturpark (Košice, Slovakia)
2014 Two-day animation workshop, ZUŠ Kováčska (Košice, Slovakia)
Animation project
Kaoru works with traditional folk and fairy tales, always working on location in the place from the culture of which the stories stem. Once there, she collects materials (such as pieces of fabrics, patterns, objects) and observations (e.g. about the ways in which people communicate, behave, walk, talk, what and how they pass on to their children, the atmoshpere of their utterances and their content), letting them infuse the style and atmosphere of the animation. She thus interweaves the stories with her information about the present of the place to which the story belongs and in which it survives.
In her animations, Kaoru recomposes the materials and observations she has collected to create a new whole. Indeed, the sense of the whole is one of the key principles guiding the creation of Kaoru’s animations – the feeling of each piece being in its correct place. On the one hand, Kaoru lets herself be led by the objects themselves, allowing them to find their correct place within the collages she creates. At the same time, Kaoru sees them as her actors and actresses, who file onto the stage under her direction as the curtain opens and the play begins. These two elements (allowing the objects to find their own place in the composition and conducting them as they perform on the stage) thus work simultaneously, resulting in a visual language that is playful, fresh and inventive – full of small suprises that make watching the films such fun.
For the animation she is working on in Košice, she chose the fairy story “The Tall, the Fat and the Sharp-Eyed One.” As part of the process of turning the fairy tales into animated films “in situ”, Kaoru often works with local artists and residents. For her Košice film, she has been co-operating with children from local schools and at the city’s children’s and youth library (through drawing workshops, creating props for the film), local writers and artists (on developing the script and storyboard), and with a local musician, who is composing music for the film. (Text by Juliana Berberich–Sokolová)