The “LOCUS” exhibition is an exchange programme between the Asagaya College of Art and Design (ASABI) and the Norwich University College of the Arts (NUCA). The two schools have engaged in the exchange of personnel and artwork under the theme of “LOCUS” since 2004.

Location, culture and daily life are deeply intertwined with one another. No matter how much the world becomes globalised, the uniqueness of culture and the life of people, which are tied to the specific locality, will never cease to exist.

The aim of the “LOCUS” exhibition is to experience the site-specific cultures and daily life of Tokyo and Norwich, and to materialise it in the form of art and design.

Takashi Hayami
Director of Postgraduate Studies
International Exchange Centre staff
Asagaya College of Art and Design

The 6th “LOCUS” exhibition is a product of regular exchanges made, as a part of the academic curriculum, between the fine art students of NUCA and the ASABI students in the Image Creation Department. The programme starts from the recognition of the contemporary state of the two countries and proceeds to understand each other’s culture and its people more deeply, then attempts to visualise the acquired knowledge into a work of art.

We not only wanted the exhibition to be a simple exchange of artwork between the students of two countries, but also wanted to value their exploratory process. The students create artwork while continuously exchanging visual images collected through their research and having discussions online. The exhibition is set as the final goal in the process of the close international and cultural exchange between the students of the two schools.

The programme consists of the following 5 phases:

step 1	Research
	The students of each country choose and conduct research work on a culturally interesting event or facility in the designated vicinity of their school, and uploads the textual and visual contents of the research to a website.
step 2	Exchange of information
	Students in one country make inquiries to their counterparts about the contents of the uploaded research. The inquired student responds, does further research, and provides more textual and visual information of the research theme.
step 3	Planning
	From the information accumulated through his or her research, each student explores ideas and images that may be developed into an artwork and gives a presentation of the plan to create the work.
step 4	Creation of the artwork
	Online exchange continues while the work is created. NUCA students visit ASABI in January 2009, makes direct contact and exchange ideas with ASABI students as well as conduct research in Japan.
step 5	Exchange of exhibitions
	Students further deepen their exchange through an exhibition at NUCA. In February, ASABI students visit NUCA and give presentations of their work. The installation of the works is done jointly by ASABI and NUCA students. In May, NUCA fine art director Molly Thompson visits ASABI and makes artwork during her stay in Tokyo. Her work is shown at the Ningyo-cho Vision’s Gallery.

Through the programme it is our wish that the students in both countries make new discoveries and find new possibilities in art creation, thus directing the exchange programme itself towards further future development.

Yukio Fukuda
Director of Image Creation Department
Asagaya College of Art and Design