Residents’ Outcomes
AKIYA AIR 2025
AKIYA AIR 2025 welcomed three exceptional artists: Anne Fehres, Luke Conroy, and Gemma Wilson. Over three months, the residency unfolded through immersive engagement with Yunotsu’s daily life and meaningful encounters with local residents, craftspeople, and traditions. Through sustained dialogue with the community and environment, the artists developed works that reflect both personal exploration and collective experience.
Anne & Luke: News From Home – Yunotsu
During their residency, Anne and Luke embedded themselves in Yunotsu’s rhythms, building relationships and engaging in conversations with craftspeople and residents.
These encounters shifted their work from documentation toward relational storytelling, where memory, material culture, and lived experience intersect.
Photos by Anne & Luke
Anne and Luke developed a new chapter of their ongoing project News From Home – Yunotsu, consisting of three large-scale free-standing photomontages (150 × 100 cm) created from over 3,000 photographs and hours of video footage. Through photomontage, the artists reconstructed these materials into dense, layered compositions in which fragments coexist within each frame.
Moving beyond linear storytelling, the works explore the concept of akiya: vacant spaces understood as holding memory, interruption, and potential futures.
Alongside the installations, Anne and Luke presented News From Home – Yunotsu: Video Documentation, a moving-image work translating their layered approach into rhythm and duration. The film was later shown in a special exhibition in Rotterdam, extending the dialogue internationally.
Outcomes
News From Home – Yunotsu
Anne Fehres & Luke Conroy, 2025
Free-standing photomontages, (150 × 100 cm)
Photos of Work by MUJUN
Some Reflection…
“…we soon discovered that observation alone was not enough; what mattered most were the encounters, the conversations, and the quiet gestures that revealed how people live with their landscapes, traditions, and tools.”
— Anne & Luke, AKIYA AIR 2025
For Anne and Luke, the residency became more than fieldwork. Editing over 3,000 photographs mirrored the layered condition of an akiya, assembling fragments that hold abandonment and renewal simultaneously.
Rather than producing a fixed statement, Anne and Luke created a visual field that invites looking, remembering, and reinterpretation — an artistic gesture in tune with the living, unfinished nature of Yunotsu itself.
Read more about their progress of News From Home in Yunotsu!
Photos by Anne & Luke
Gemma Wilson: Masked Character Series
Drawing on Kojiki （古事記、こじき）myths, including Susanoo’s（須佐之男命）defeat of Yamata no Orochi （八岐大蛇）and Amaterasu’s（天照大神）connection to silk cultivation, Gemma investigated how these stories continue to shape the region’s landscape and cultural memory throughout her residency.
She had the opportunity to closely observe Iwami Kagura performances, translating the rhythm, movement, and expressive gestures of ritual into visual forms. Visits to washi workshops and mask-making ateliers deepened her understanding of traditional techniques, revealing how paper, masks, and ritual performance intertwine to convey identity, symbolism, and movement.
Outcomes
Gemma’s immersive experience resulted in the Masked Character Series, a set of woodblock prints inspired by Kagura masks and local myths. Each work combines modern and traditional elements, European and Japanese influences, and reflections on social and environmental themes.
She explored form, color, and composition through detailed studies of mask features, such as the asymmetrical eyes of Hyottoko and the expressive mouth of Hannya.
Masked Character Series
Gemma Wilson, 2025
Woodblock prints, sketches, and process photographs
Mural In Yunotsu
In addition to the prints, Gemma created sketches, process photographs, and a mural on a charred wooden guesthouse wall. The mural, incorporating geometric shapes and traditional materials, allowed her work to engage directly with the town and community, creating a living dialogue as neighbors observed and shared stories.
Some Reflection…
For Gemma, the residency was an immersive exploration of how mythology, ritual, and craft shape the living landscape.
Her residency work forms an evolving visual dialogue, bridging mythic past and contemporary reflection, European and Japanese traditions, and the ongoing relationship between story, ritual, craft, and place.
“I am aware of my position as an outsider to Japanese culture, and this perspective shapes how I approach these stories. I hope my work can offer both Japanese and international viewers a new visual interpretation of their own mythological heritage.”
— Gemma, AKIYA AIR 2025