facetten 14. steffenschni. Hatake: An expedition into Japanese gardening culture

(Paperback)

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Heidi Schoni and Karl Steffen went on a seven-week journey through Japan in the fall of 2010. Thanks to funding from the canton Thurgau, the artist couple, known under the name of steffenschoni, was able to make a long-time plan a reality. The media artists, whose work has had a focus on notions of plants and gardening for years, seized the opportunity to deepen their photographic research on Japanese kitchen gardens (hatake). They took over 3000 photographs on their journey from the urban sprawl of Tokyo, via the rural island Shikoku, to Kyushu, Hiroshima and Naoshima. A selection of 30 garden pictures is now being published as a portfolio that is reminiscent of Japanese paper art. The book is number 14 of the facetten series and features texts by Christoph Neidhardt and Martin Preisser.

Author Bio

Heidi Schoni, born in 1953, is a trained primary school teacher. She studied at the Zurich University of the Arts and has been a freelance artist and teacher since 1981. Karl Steffen, born in 1953, trained as a chemical laboratory assistant. He received further training in biochemics and photography in the U.S. Heidi Schoni and Karl Steffen live and work together at the Schmidshof in the canton Thurgau. Christoph Neidhart, born in 1954, lives in Tokyo, where he works as a correspondent for several German-language newspapers. Martin Preisser, born in 1962, arts editor at the St.Galler Tagblatt, lives with and for the arts in Eastern Switzerland.