TKG+ at Art Collaboration Kyoto 2026 | Booth GC16: Art Fair

November 6, 2026 (Fri.) | 12:30-7:00 p.m.

(Last admission is one hour before closing.)

Time does not always take the form of clocks or dates. At times, it rests within the cross-section of a mineral, the texture of a fossil, or a fragment of an ancient city wall. At others, it resides in paper that has been repeatedly cut and woven, clay shaped by hand and transformed by fire, or the pillows and wooden trays that accompany everyday life.

In 2026, TKG+ returns to Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK) with works by Jam Wu, Cheng-Hung Chiu, Charwei Tsai, and Crystal Lupa. Moving across paper, rare minerals, fossils, ancient walls, clay, and domestic objects, the four artists consider how time comes to dwell within matter—and how touch, making, and imagination bring it into view once more.

For Jam Wu, time exists in the repetition of manual labor. Through processes of cutting, folding, stitching, and weaving, paper and fiber gradually acquire density. Each gesture leaves evidence of the body upon the material, allowing memory to shift from an abstract sensation into a visible form. Paper is no longer merely a surface for images, but a texture in which time can reside.

Cheng-Hung Chiu turns toward a timescale that extends far beyond an individual life. In this presentation, he does not use wood; instead, rare minerals, fossils, and materials connected to ancient city walls continue his exploration of memory and scars. Minerals bear traces of geological processes, fossils hold the remains of past life, and old walls register the passage of history. The works are notably smaller in scale, drawing the viewer closer. As vast spans of time are condensed into compact forms, fissures, exposed surfaces, and incompleteness become more apparent.

Charwei Tsai presents a group of small ceramic works inscribed with the Heart Sutra. In contrast to the extended duration held by minerals and fossils, clay embodies a form of time that remains close to the body. Soft earth is shaped by hand, dried, and made permanent through firing, while the sutra remains on the surface through the act of writing. Text, gesture, and material thus overlap: each ceramic object resembles both a gesture held in place and a recitation set into matter. Their intimate scale asks viewers to approach closely and attend to the contours of the clay, handmade irregularities, traces of writing, and subtle differences produced by fire.

Crystal Lupa brings time back into the familiar realm of daily life. Using pillows and wooden trays as the foundations of her works, she paints images with fairy-tale and allegorical implications across their surfaces. Objects with specific functions become narrative carriers suspended between reality and imagination. The pillow evokes sleep, dreams, and private experience; the tray suggests holding, sharing, and domestic life. Once covered by these images, the everyday becomes a setting in which allegory can unfold.

The works do not point toward a single form of time, but toward the different places in which time may dwell. It can be found in geological depths or on the surface of a historical wall; accumulated through repeated bodily labor or fixed in a single firing; concealed within an object used each day, waiting to be reopened through image and imagination.

Here, matter is not simply a passive recipient of time, but a vessel for memory. Cracks, folds, the written sutra, textures, traces of fire, and associations of use allow moments that have passed to persist in another form. Since its founding in 2021, Art Collaboration Kyoto has placed collaboration at its core, bringing Japanese and international galleries together and opening exchanges across cultures and artistic practices.

Within Kyoto—a city where the past continually coexists with the present—the four artists offer a quieter way of looking: time has not truly disappeared. It has only changed form, dwelling within things.