Through the Down the Dori exhibition I have managed to meet and engage with other Japanese students, and together we have set up an Anglo Japan group called Radical Tradition. Our group Facebook page can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/475033009254537/
Below are some images from the Private View at The Cookhouse Gallery at Chelsea College of Art.
Slick by Alex Wood
Tokyo Two Alex Wood and Cheryl Papasian
Chair-O-Plane by Alex Wood
Ferris Wheel by Alex Wood
Cheryl Papasian
I have been working on a chair-o-plane sculpture since seeing a massive one in Tokyo. I’m combining many materials and using motors.
Alongside it is a Tokyo tower model I have created.
Alongside the exhibition there will be catalogues currently being printed…
The preview is Tuesday 2 July 5-8PM and the show is open until Friday 5 July, at
The Cookhouse, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 16 John Islip Street, London 
I am creating a slip cast mould to produce multiples of The Golden Pavillion which I saw in Kyoto. I intend to create a work inspired somewhat by Aleksandra Mir’s ‘Triumph’ where she towered up hundreds of readymades trophies.
The gilding on The Golden Pavilion was totally amazing – I have never seen such intricate craftsmanship. Reproducing the pavilion in clay links to my interest in models and their reproducibility. Like the airfix kits were all cast plastic.
The four part mould in creation…
First cast out of the mould …
I have been creating slip cast moulds – of ceramic pods for a large Ferris wheel kinetic sculpture. It references the Ferris wheel in Odaiba Island, Tokyo.
I have submitted a piece of writing to JAWS Journal, a University of the Arts Publication that promotes student writing and research.
My piece focuses on the cultural differences between theatre in the West compared to that of theatre in Japan. I also make reference to my own sculpture, Slickthat explores low-fi and high-fi materials with bronze and card.
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Resonation and Amplification in Art and Noh Theatre
“The Noh is unquestionably one of the great arts of the world, and it is quite possibly one of the most recondite” (Pound, E & Fenollosa, E. 1979)
As part of the CCW exchange, I went on a three-week trip to Japan and stayed at the Tokyo Wonder Site. Whilst there were distinct cultural contrasts between east and west, I also found many parallels between Tokyo’s people and places, and my own art practice. In this article, I am going to assert some of these similarities, by engaging with Zenchiku’s Chikubu-Shima; performed at the National Noh Theatre in Shibuya, Tokyo, during my stay.
In researching Noh beforehand, I found out that the floor is polished to enable better ‘gliding’ of actors, and that giant pots are buried underneath the stage, enabling sounds to resonate in the theatre space. These are components that I may have never been aware of during my own viewing, as they serve to amplify experience, rather than signify in-themselves. Through the actions that take place, Noh becomes more than purely theatre, and lends itself closer to a piece of performance art…
I have been working on a series of bronze pagodas. Different sized ones. One at the moment I am creating is similar to Kinkau-Ji Pavillion which I saw in Kyoto.
I am also creating a five storied pagoda, similar to what I saw in Nikko, with the intention of them all working in conjunction with electrical elements…
These pieces are all created out of wax first and balsa wood which I will then create the plaster mould from.
Investing the wax into plaster to crate the investment mould …
The pagoda is now out of the plaster and I am finishing the surfaces. I have been angle grinding off various runners and risers that helped the bronze flow to all the parts.
This piece is a work in progress, but influenced from a weird chairoplane ride I saw in Tokyo.
Tokyo 