Tsuyoshi Ozawa
b. 1965, Japan
On the earth where we live, the various races have different beliefs and religions. We live here with all its problems, such as population growth, environmental pollution, the energy problem, the emigrant problem, ethnic battles, expansion of an economic indifference. When faced with such a complicated world, most people shut themselves up in their own world.
Large quantities of rubbish, produced by society’s mass consumption, are brought not only to big cities, but also to remote and beautiful regions. When I planned a trip to a sacred mountain, Mount Kailash in Tibet, I knew that rubbish had been dumped there as well.
I thought about whether I could recycle the rubbish to create an artwork. I knew that there was a company studying technology to make carpets from plastic-bottle fibre for many years. I wove plastic bottles, which I collected at various places that were fraught with social contradiction, and made carpets from each place. Each carpet is woven up with the social problem of the area. The things that were thrown as rubbish will be newly reproduced as a place where people gather.
(Text: too early for vacation catalogue, 2008)
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