Tomorrow, I board a flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong. From there, I travel to Tokyo’s Narita Airport and from there, to the first ever Tokyo International Art Fair in the Harajuku District. I will be one of 150 artists from all over the world. I have no idea how the Japanese will react to my strange blend of medium and message, but just the chance to be there is completely thrilling.
It was my friend Juan Coetzee who applied without telling me. He has been helping me with marketing my art for the last year. After being rejected by the Cape Town Art Fair, he decided to try Japan – and lo and behold, we got the nod. I’ve even made it into the official press release, which is pretty exciting.
Japan has long fascinated me – I wrote about Japanese soft power in my PhD thesis – but I never imagined I’d get to visit it any time soon.