Sayaka Ganz: Animated Objects and Reclaimed Creations

FEATURED ARTIST | WINTER 2022

Animated Objects and reclaimed creations

SAYAKA GANZ

Photograph by Rachel Von

Animated Objects

&

reclaimed creations

NEW LETTERS INTERN JULIA SMITH TALKS WITH ARTIST SAYAKA GANZ ABOUT HER WORK

Sayak Ganz was born in Yokohama, Japan, and grew up living in Japan, Brazil, and Hong Kong. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University Bloomington, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 3-D Studies from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Using reclaimed metal and plastic objects, Sayaka’s recent sculptures depict animals in motion with rich colors and energy. She describes her style as “3-D impressionism,” creating an illusion of solid form using plastic objects as brush strokes that become visible upon observation from close proximity. Since 2017 her traveling exhibition “Sayaka Ganz—Reclaimed Creations” has been shown in 12 venues across the country and will be shown in 6 more venues through 2024. Her recent commissions include a series of marine life sculptures for the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, and a permanent installation of an underwater scene featuring whales and turtles in the lobby of the Cimer Spa at the Paradise Resort in Incheon, Korea.

julia smith: Your work has captivated

dynamic pose or composition from a certain me in so many ways and I want to thank you angle, even knowing that the sculpture is up front for participating in this interview. viewable in the round.

Here at New Letters we love art as much as we love writing. Your collagraphs and sculptures js: Illusion also works because the viewer fit the magazine’s efforts to seek out new experiences cognitive dissonance, in the voices and hybrid works that reveal meaning sense that they see life where there is none. relevant to the changes we are experiencing How can colorful plastic spatulas and scrap iron come to mimic life? Do you have an in the world today.

Your 3-D impressionistic sculptures underlying belief system that contributes feature animals in motion, as if in their natural to your ability to see and/or infuse life in habitat: a galloping horse with a streaming inanimate objects? mane of hair; a breaching whale; a bird in flight, wings spread, as if riding a current; the sg: I think that the most important thing slink of a wolf on the prowl. They address I do for creating the illusion of life, is to environmental issues through reclaimed imagine very vividly that it is alive. I’m from material, and present an illusion in which the Japan, and as children we are taught that all viewer brings their imagination to play. I’m things in this world have a spirit, or a soul. so excited to explore all of these issues with It’s not a single story that we are taught at you. Let’s start by talking about the illusion school or something we are necessarily even of movement you create in your sculptures. told—it’s a belief system that is woven into What is “3-D impressionism,” and how did our daily lives. For example, we are told that household objects that get thrown away you come to describe your work that way? before their usefulness has run out will cry sayaka ganz: It’s very interesting in the trash bin at night. I think that children that you ask me this question. No one has all around the world see the world that way, asked me this before. This description, “3-D and imagine that inanimate objects have impressionism,” came to me as I was talking feelings or thoughts, and wonder if these to Dan Swartz, who runs a local non-profit objects around us are watching us. As we experimental gallery space. He was asking me grow older we tend to forget that, but it only what historical movement or genre I felt my takes something like art to trigger a spark of work fell into, and as I searched my memory imagination for that sensation to return.

I did not find anything in the sculpture field my work seemed to fit in. I studied js: What was your life like in Japan? Was printmaking in college and I still feel a very anyone in your family an artist, also? What strong connection with the 2-D media, such brought you to the United States, and how as painting and drawing. I tend to look for a did that form your art education and practice?

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fogo II

Reclaimed plastic objects, painted steel armature, hardware, wire, cable ties

sg: My family lived in Yokohama, Japan, in

a suburb near a big public park that was well known as a habitat for Japanese firefly “genjibotaru” or luciola cruciata. My parents are both creative people but they did not pursue a career in the arts. My father worked for SONY at the time in finance, and my mother stayed at home to take care of my brother and me.

My mother had many craft hobbies as I was growing up, and I would always get her scrap materials and play with them, sometimes mimicking what she was doing and other times inventing my own techniques.

We lived in Japan until I was nine, at which point my family moved to São Paulo, Brazil because of my father’s work. Both my parents love to travel so my father actively pursued positions that took us abroad. We were there for five years and that’s where I first learned English because my parents wanted me to go to an American school. We 4

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moved back to Japan when I was thirteen, and I had a difficult time fitting in at school at the time, which might be the most powerful experience that gave me this yearning to belong, that makes me want to give these found objects a place. We moved to Hong Kong when I was sixteen. Then, after I graduated from high school in Hong Kong, I came to the U.S. for college. Looking back now, I realize that my decision to come to the U.S. was primarily out of fear of repeating the same experience of going back to Japan when I was thirteen—the memory was still so fresh and painful in my mind. I went to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. When I applied, I stated that I wanted to major in veterinary science because I loved animals.

But shortly after I arrived I switched my major to art. Being in the Midwest was great—such a contrast from Hong Kong, where it’s so crowded and the buildings are so tall you

could only see small bits of the sky, although I had grown very fond of the city. I took a one-day welding workshop during my junior year, using scrap metal that other students had brought in and did not end up using— scraps of scrap metal, which I really loved.

I just loved the idea of making something beautiful from things that other people had rejected. Being in Indiana, there were scrapyards that the more resourceful students could access easily. Because my family did not farm or even garden much, most of the scrap metal objects were fascinating foreign forms that I could rotate and fit together to create interesting animal sculptures.

sometimes dumpsters. I have them sorted by color into about forty large plastic storage bins. When I have enough of one color I can make a plan for a project. I might focus on a specific animal or select a few candidates that may have a type of motion I want to depict.

If I have a commissioned project, often the animal or subject gets decided first, so I am careful to choose the color that I either have enough of or I am confident I can get more of if I need.

A project can take anywhere from one week to several months, and my most recent commission took me about a year from the planning and sketching stage to completion.

js: Could you give us a sense of your studio, js: You have described your process as first perhaps a snapshot? Where do you find your materials, sort and store, etc? How long does a large project take to create? Can you give us a glimpse of a work in progress?

sg: My studio is currently at three different

locations: 1) the basement of my house where I live with my husband. We are both artists and we share the basement studio.

2) TekVenture maker space, which is a shared space where I currently do all my large-scale projects, mostly in metal.

3)The Build Guild, which is another maker space in town where I have a private room that is used primarily for storage of my plastic objects.

I also have a storage unit that I rent.

I am always collecting and reclaiming objects, from thrift stores and donations and

creating an armature or frame for a sculpture, then assembling the pieces along lines you call motion lines. A quicker motion is easier to depict than a slow motion. But your process of choosing each piece is intuitive and joyful. Can you explain how that works, the interplay of object, motion, and form?

sg: When I’m making the metal armature,

this is a very carefully-planned process. Once I complete the armature form, paint it and start to attach plastic objects to it, I cannot easily make changes to the armature. So this is a very contrasting approach to how I work when attaching the plastic objects. I am mainly focused on getting the pose, angle, and locations of the joints in the animal’s body correct from all angles. Once the armature form is complete, I can be very spontaneous and free because I have this solid framework

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work in progress

TekVenture Maker Space

that will support the structure and keep the overall form from straying too far from what my initial vision had been. But this also makes me less flexible to make big changes if I want to later on. When I start attaching the plastic objects to the armature, I do so by first holding up various objects that I think would be a good fit for the form and flow of each location on the armature. By flow, I mean a combination of the direction of movement that I imagine this animal making, and the flow of bone and muscle structure of the body. In some areas it makes more sense for the visible lines of the sculpture to follow the movement and extend outside the areas defined by the skin, in other areas it looks better when the brush strokes follow the natural direction of the muscle fiber. These decisions I make are very intuitive, and mostly by trial and error, but in a way that feels to me like a series of discoveries. This is a very joyful and child-like experience.

js: I see a lot of connections between your

approach to art and how a writer approaches writing. The plastic items you work with are discards, random and found, like our thoughts can be. Tell us what rules you follow in selecting materials and the process of assembling them? What rules do you break?

sg:

of expressing myself in writing. For the past several years I have been practicing various meditation techniques. My Zen teacher Jay Rinsen Weik, from the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, told me years ago that I could have more joy and ease in my life if I could approach my life as I approach my sculpture.

This is a similar idea, but one that has eluded me for years. Now I am finally coming to realize that when I’m making decisions about my sculpture—what to add, what to subtract, or when the piece is finished, when I have to go back several steps and make changes to the armature—these decisions come from a different place in me than the part of me that seems to be making all other decisions in my life. There aren’t very many rules. If a piece of plastic that looks beautiful and perfect in the spot I attached it to reveals itself to be very brittle and fragile, I have to remove and throw it away. If I discover that there was something wrong with the armature that takes away from the overall visual presence of the sculpture, I have to make the changes even if it means I have to remove many plastic objects, cover the remaining plastics still attached to the armature, and make the cut or new weld or whatever else it needs.

The questions I ask myself are very simple and basic: Does this look good? Does this enhance the sense of movement? Is this object blocking the flow?

It used to be such a struggle for me to express myself in writing, and a few friends have advised me over the years to js: In a video interview, you thank the try to approach writing as if I am sculpting objects, tell them your plan, assemble them with words. That was such a revelation to with the intention to infuse them with life me, and it has helped me enjoy the process in a new form. They transcend themselves

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NANAMI

Reclaimed plastic objects, painted steel armature, hardware, wire, cable ties

from this gentle and respectful approach.

If we treat the simplest and lowest forms as worthy, that gentleness moves outward and upward into all our relationships. Like a word connected to a line to a paragraph to a poem—you work from the bottom up. I can imagine how much better my writing could be if I showed such respect to each word!

sg: What a beautiful way to think about

language! I wish I could say that I practice writing in this way, but as I mentioned before writing to me is a struggle . . . and now I know why, ha ha. Now I really want to try doing what you suggest. It sounds like a very powerful transformative work.

js:

You describe your installations as an environment—so if the whale is the main object, the viewer will encounter a kelp wall

first, like a hiker emerging from the woods to a vista. How does this experience affect the viewer in a traditional museum versus one such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where they also encounter living animals?

How do factors like scale, environment, and geography affect the viewer?

sg:

An element of surprise seems to really help enhance the sense of discovery and wonder that a viewer experiences. My work does this by looking more or less like a continuous, solid form of an animal from a distance and revealing the materials only upon closer inspection. Additional elements like a kelp wall, or plants, or other living animals, also create a perception of there being some interaction or relationship between the surrounding environment and the sculptures. They all feed the imagination, SAYA K A G A N Z | 9

In to the sky

(det

tail)

Photograph by Sheri Cotterman Aluminium, relaimed plastic objects, hardware, wire rope, wire, cable ties

PROTECTOR

Collagraph

trigger free association, and provoke thoughts. I don’t try to control what these thoughts and imaginings can be, but I feel that these can only lead to a more powerful sense of connection that the viewers feel to the artworks as well as the animals and the natural environment.

js: I viewed your artist picks as an artist curator on artistaday.com. I particularly liked Aurora Robson’s work and your quote describing it as “beautiful and politically motivated” that takes the “negative to the positive.” I think that fits with your philosophy. You are quoted as saying, “I do 12

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not want to condemn the use of plastic or our desire for a more convenient, easier life.

However, we must be aware that convenience has hidden costs.” Do you think art today needs to be politically motivated?

sg: I am not politically motivated. That’s

really not where my drive to create comes from. I think that art can help steer a political view, but I’m coming to understand that the core motivation of an artist needs to remain pure. For some it may be political. For me the motivation comes from a fascination with the discarded materials themselves, a sense of affinity with them, and the desire to

show the potential for beauty and energy in them. For a few years I felt as though my goal should be to inspire people to change their behavior, to be more environmentally aware, to waste less, etc. But in the end I found that it did not help my work. It only made me enjoy my work less.

don’t want to throw a spoon that we just used to eat our soup into the trash as if it was a worthless piece of trash. We may discover some space inside our heart that really wants to protect the habitats of dolphins. If my art can make people want to connect with nature more, or want to be kinder to inanimate objects, that genuine desire has more power js: I have read something about your work than anything produced through guilt. that is very close to my own heart. You don’t think that guilt creates positive change, but js: Here at New Letters, we are located in a inspiration does. How do you inspire people landlocked state, Missouri, but our featured through your work? How does this relate to writers come from all over the world. In this issue, there are over 55 animals in stories. the environment?

It is clear that in this time of pandemic and sg: I think that when we encounter environmental distress, writers are connecting something more beautiful than we can to animals. Why do you think this is? imagine, it gives us a sense of awe. This can be very inspiring, gives us a surge of energy, sg: I think that we are learning as a or maybe it makes us giddy. From this surge collective the limitations of our current of energy, if we are able to hold on to that, social structure, such as the inequality of the we can create some action that is coming economic system, the comparison culture, from a place of curiosity, joy, and love. In our consumer culture, health care system, etc. modern life we tend to be bombarded with and looking toward animals and nature for fear-based advertisements or urgent requests wisdom and answers from a non-human for donations to help in some urgent, perspective. Animals to us are like a bridge heartbreaking disaster or another. To cope into the natural world, one of the ways we with these, I’m having to put a hard shell feel connected to the earth. They are easy around my heart as if I can only allow my for us to relate to, and yet they do not share heart to care about topics that have been pre- our social pressures or cultural baggage. It approved by my brain, or my bank account can be so healing to just think about animals would be empty. So I am, and I think many instead of worrying about insurance plans or people are, walking around every day with mortgage! our hearts very tightly guarded. When we look at a work of art that we thoroughly enjoy js: Christie Hodgen, Editor-in-Chief of New it can be a very heart-opening experience. Letters, has chosen one of your collagraphs From that place, we may discover that we named Protector as the spirit animal or

SAYA K A G A N Z | 1 3

mascot for New Letters. What is a collagraph?

Why are spirit animals popular in Japan?

Protector is a lion with wings—reminiscent of but notably not a griffin, an eagle head attached to a lion body. What does Protector mean to you? Is it from your imagination or does it have an origin elsewhere?

Collagraph is a printmaking medium. It’s like a collage that gets used as a printing block.

I use a plastic substrate and paste various thin flat found objects on it to make my image.

The part that some people find tricky about it is that the colors of the found objects don’t matter at all, because the dark to light value of the image comes from the texture and surface quality of the materials only. So, if I glue a piece of paper on top of another, the edge of the paper makes a tiny ridge and this will result in a line and the texture of the paper itself will create a tone. But if the piece of paper is black, or pink, or yellow, they print the same way as long as the texture remains the same.

In Japan we are raised with animist Shinto beliefs that teach that all things in this world have a spirit. I mentioned this at the beginning of the interview. I think it’s probably also common in other parts of the world for people to anthropomorphize animals and imagine that inanimate objects have thoughts and feelings, but in Japan it is especially apparent in our love of cute mascot characters for just about every company and even police departments. I’m actually not sure if spirit animals are popular . . . but there are many folk tales and myths that feature animals, often with strange or magical powers.

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“Protector” is the Lion of Saint Mark, which is the protector and symbol of Venice in Italy. I made this print while I was working as the co-residency coordinator at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, an international printmaking school and residency. In the background of the print image “Protector” the top of the dome and towers of St. Mark’s Basilica. To me the weather vanes at the top of the dome and the towers looked like they were communicating with the heavens. This image is really more about the connection with the universe more than kinetic movement.

js: You also write songs and sing. You’re

moving into kinetic sculpture with lighting.

What’s on your horizon as your work evolves?

sg: I started writing songs in 2020—this

was my pandemic project. My songs are nonverbal expressions that I feel for intuitively.

That’s the best way I can explain my process. I think about an animal and feel for appropriate sound expressions. I would keep trying different sounds until I find one that feels right. This is very similar to how I work with plastic objects—I keep trying different pieces until I find one that feels right. So far, I have made three songs for sculptures that I made in the past, and three more for sculptures while I was building them. This became such a nourishing practice for me that I hope to continue. I would like to make a song for each new sculpture that I make.

The kinetic chandelier series is a collaboration with Jim Merz, a kinetic artist who also lives in Fort Wayne. We have

Sayaka holding “wisdom”

Photograph byMOLD, graphic design: Kim Beers

Aluminum, reclaimed plastic objects, wire, cable ties

been working together for over ten years now, mostly on “Luminariales” which is a series of kinetic chandeliers made of colorful plastic ware such as bowls, goblets, margarita glasses, and plates strung together like beads, lit from within by LED that Jim designs and programs. Each time we have an opportunity to show them, we develop it a little bit further.

Lately I have been thinking about publishing a book of mostly images of

my sculpture with some writing. Many of my colleagues that I admire have done it and I now have so many beautiful photos, definitely enough to fill a whole book. So this is an intimidating but exciting project that I would like to lean into once the two commission projects I’m working on right now are complete.

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