C-PLATFORM × Ivan Juárez

hinoki + sugi pavilion
Oawa mountain, Kamiyama, Japan

A new approach to the natural landscape of Oawa mountain, a protected and sacred forest located in the town of Kamiyama, Japan. The region is covered by evergreen woodland where the predominant vegetation includes trees of hinoki 檜 -Japanese cypress- and sugi 杉-Japanese cedar-. In-between pavilion consists of a sugi wooden space generated from two elevated planes supported by a series of vertical elements -trunks of hinoki and sugi- that merge together with the natural environment.

The wide frame suggests a fragment of the forest as a new viewpoint of reference. In this way, the pavilion pays homage to the traditional black-ink Japanese paintings made on landscape formats. The project is drawn as a space that does not end in specific limits, but merges with the surrounding greenery expanding the visual boundaries transforming into a large three-dimensional canvas. The visitor enters through a blue-green stone – awa aoishi 青石 – and from there, the aroma and sound of wood, along with the texture of barks dialogue with the senses producing olfactory, tactile and visual experiences.

Botanical Island

Living-lab
Greater Blue Mountains, Australia

Located on the limits of Wollemi National Park, in the UNESCO`s World Heritage listed Greater Blue Mountains, the site-specific intervention proposes a -living lab- through a conductive thread across different cartographies. Along a circuit path the intervention delimits and scopes a fragment of a forest, as a botanical island with significant biodiversity that contains multiple layers of endemic landscapes offering the sensory experience of touching, smelling, observing, walking and listening. The site-specific intervention is a symbolic delimitation of a portion of a pristine forest and the enhancement of its biodiversity. Native plant species, endemic fauna and a low-impact pathway weave together botany and perceptual experience. The project proposes dialogues between sensory and scientific approach and community`s knowledge dissemination.

Research-Lab & dissemination: With the intention of increasing the landscape awareness, the project applies interdisciplinary methods of site-approaching and didactic processes. The intervention was complemented with the Research-lab, a parallel exhibition space for knowledge, participation and dissemination where the experiential site work is displayed: sensory maps, drawings, cartographies, videos, sound recordings, sketches, photographs, models, as well as the interactive herbarium.

Vegetation process: The project has been conceived as a series of ephemeral interventions -tracing, mapping, plant identification and community walk-, emphasizing the natural process of vegetation, and encouraging nature to continue with its own spontaneous growth, by erasing the trace left by human activity and performing over again its own dynamics

Interactive Herbarium: With the aim to collect, identify and disseminate the different species that shape the -Botanical Island- , the herbarium is displayed as a framework in which the local community can participate and interact, sharing their own knowledge about the plants identified in the site -uses, applications, relationships, cultural meanings or personal stories-. Among the flora living in this forest fragment are several varieties of eucalyptus and angophoras, associated with a variety of cedars, acacias, turpentines, ferns, grasses, mosses, shrubs and wildflowers.

Credits:
x-studio : Ivan Juarez
with the support of Bilpin international ground for Creative initiatives (BigCi)
BigCi Environmental Award 2018
Special thanks to Rae Bolotin and Yuri Bolotin
flora identification: Prue Gargano

Lightness

Mediterranean light
site-specific light installations at Jørn Utzon`s Can Lis House
Mallorca, Spain

When sun light -sunrise and sunset- meets the stone walls of Can Lis house, the architectural space is transformed into intangible drawings where light and shadow fill the space insinuating the existence of tridimensional geometrical shapes. The series of site-specific installations pay homage to the Mediterranean natural light and its sensitive presence in the house. A poetic dialogue between space, immateriality and movement where light traces the pass of time evoking visual and ephemeral experiences.

Project made with the support of Utzon Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation Committee for Architecture.

Intervention. Gothic Cloister

Convent de Sant Agustí, Barcelona, Spain.

Ivan Juárez，practicing artist, landscape architect and educator. Currently living in Wroclaw, Poland. Founder and principal of x-studio, Founder of Sensory Landscapes.

He is being selected by Xi·Art Museum Generative Project 2020-2021.

Personal statement

My main field of interest lies on the relationship between artistic practices and different environmental disciplines and how this connection can be a medium to establish poetic dialogues between art, natural habitats and society. I consider artistic research as a wider vision of understanding and examining the environment that surrounds us, in which every project can enrich itself through diverse views.

The projects conceived in my research practice propose new narratives to relate us with the environment, exploring new aspects to redefine the boundaries between natural habitats and human beings by creating sensitive interventions that leave spaces for new encounters. Through my practice, I am interested on providing experiential approaches by incorporating the notion of specific contexts, emphasizing their qualities. Besides, my projects explore diverse type of ecosystems in dialogue with bodily experience and senses. Since its conception, my creative-research process is closely joined to the surroundings, in which I develop a connection with the landscape applying natural cycles, seasonality, local knowledge, materials and techniques. In this way, the projects interact with the environment, generating new ways of coexistence.

Many thanks to Ivan Juárez for his support and authorisation of this article.

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