Leonardo Fajardo

Leonardo Fajardo

The inaugural exhibition at the new contemporary art space Kunsthalle Kyoto, this show serves as a survey of the Kyoto-based Colombian artist's work to date. This exhibition aims to examine the shifting cultural identities of Japan and Colombia from the Jomon and pre-Columbian, respectively, through to the contemporary era. Broadly speaking, and through the lens of cultural production through the concept and structure of the house, this is an examination of the lifestyles of indigenous natives to expatriate diaspora; the politics of colonization to communism; the rituals of hometown agricultural life to codes of multinational corporate malfeasance; and the material, economic, environmental, social, political and psychological compromises that permeate every interaction in between. This is also an historic survey and exploration of the chronologically twinned evolution of craft including basketry, woodworking and ceramic cultures as far back as ancient Japan’s Jomon and Colombia’s Herrera periods, and the development of vernacular architecture spanning the same expanse of time, from Kofun and Pre-Colombian burial mounds to the ad hoc manifestations of housing for impoverished, refugee and disaster relief situations of present day.