Rizki LAZUARDI

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Rizki LAZUARDI

Participating Project	International Creator Residency Program
Activity Based	Bandung
City / Place stayed	Tokyo
Period	2024.9 - 2024.11

Purpose of the residency

I would like to conduct an artistic research on the speculative entanglement between the gamma field facility at the Institution of Radiation Breeding in Hitachiomiya, Ibaraki and the luxury-fruit culture in Japan.

Plan during the residency

• Conducting research on the Gamma Field farming facility at the Institute of Radiation Breeding in Hitachiomiya
• Conducting research on the luxurious fruit culture in Japan (social aspect, industrial perspective, history)
• Collecting footage or archive of Japan's involvement in the US-led Atom for the Peace program in the 1950s
• Recording a film or reenacting a scene of fruits auction in a market
• Visiting exhibitions, artist studios, or museums conducting practices related to bio-art

Activities during the residency

Throughout my residency period, I immersed myself in the different environments that are entangled with overly-engineered fruits. From luxurious fruit market in Ginza to the archives of Gamma Field in Hitachi Omiya. The now-defunct Gamma-irradiated agricultural plantation in Ibaraki prefecture is the epicenter of my research. I did series of interviews with experts and researchers in agricultural and nuclear power, to dig information on how extensive the facility and its policy contributed to the genetically modified fruits in Japanese market. The powerful Cobalt60, isotope that irradiated and mutated the plants, became the main visual signifier I appropriated artistically. During the open studio, I emulated a lab where the isotope is kept and the plants are modified.

Outcome of the residency

I was overwhelmed by the wide arrays of archives and interconnected findings. The trivial facts and fictions entangled with the fruits modification existed in several governmental projects or popular cultures. To extract all narratives that connect the dots are the most important stage of my artistic research. As for the outcome, I plan to shed more light on the luxurious fruit auction. It aims to show the socioeconomic impact of the modified fruits. If I could have more time and resource, I would as well further explore the mutated plants depicted in the Japanese tokusatsu and super sentai series.

Creator Information