Chikako Watanabe was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1969 and currently lives in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. She graduated from the Ceramic Department at Kyoto City University of Arts with a master’s degree, and she has been based in the Netherlands since 1995. She completed Sandberg Institute in 1998 and Rijksakademie in 2002. She travels around the world, encountering different cultures and communities, and creates works by learning things from local people. Through the works made from the things she found at those places and collaborations with a variety of people, she creates “places”, where memories of the lands and reality intertwine.
Watanabe learnt how to weave nets from a fisherman in the Netherlands and, using the technique, she has woven nets at various places in her projects. Weaving a net with the people living around Mt. Nose Myoken as the starting point, she drew essences from the land. Based on the research she will conduct in the extended areas outside of Nose, she will connect customs that seem remote from each other, such as Mt. Nose Myoken and the history of beliefs, and fishermen and nomads, who both live while looking at stars as their guide. She will use the net she wove with children at workshops as a guide and compose pathways to go around Mt. Nose Myoken. On the mountain summit, she will build a tower with the materials she found in the land and propose to go on a grand imaginary journey to go see activities of stars, oceans, and humans. During the exhibition period,
she will invite guest musicians and make touring performances to create ritualistic viewing experience for the audience.

http://www.chikahome.nl