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Wind Mirage Mantis Gates of Soryo-cho dam house East Gate/West Gate, 1996 Hiroshima, Japan

The Haizuka Earthworks Projects 1994-1996, hiroshima, japan

The Haizuka Earthworks Projects (HEP), headquartered in Soryo-cho, Hiroshima, Japan, may seem to take the long way home. Since 1994, Finkel has participated in a series of collaborative gatherings and produced designs as well as completing an outdoor sculptural piece there.

HEP was conceived by its architects as a way to soften the impact of the planned construction of a dam whose artificial lake would cover some of the town and its surroundings. As AAP (Advanced Application Program), a think tank based in Osaka, put it, "“"The purpose of Haizuka Site Generative Project is to create artistic circumstances around the lake of the dam, adopting ideas offered by [two Japanese and four foreign] artists."”"

Japan is an appropriate place for an American artist to think of restoration, as well as public art. The market for gallery and museum artworks is sagging with the economy. Public sculpture, in contrast, is supported by local governments in their budgets for architecture and construction. After a half-century of "“"recovery,"”" public art of a certain sort is now thriving in Japan because prefectures make artist-generated and designed public works a part of their plans for urban and rural development.

From "“"A Geography of Home: Alan Finkel"’"s Public Art"rdquo;" by Arlene Raven,"”" Sculpture, March 1998 Vol. 17 no. 3 pp. 26, 27, 31