"......These safe and slow pathways are perfect for tiny feet and their larger commute-weary companions. Dense greens and colourful scented collages reside at the height and scale of little eyes and noses. Irrepressible hands thrive on the mixture of gravel, sand, grass, rocks, sticks and fallen fruit that compose Tokyo carpets. In summer developing ears drink in crickets, cicadas and neighbourhood rustlings...."
A small study on the child's perception of the street. This document traces the everyday treasures of a rainy day walk to the local sento in suburban Tokyo. It is part of a broader and slightly wonky research and practice agenda on the hand made, everyday creativity, play, and usable environments.
“I HOPE YOU’RE NOT PLANNING TO SELL YOUR HOUSE ANYTIME SOON”
— someone attending one of our art openings —
This is what people often say when they first see our work at art openings, exhibition talks, or film festivals. While they could be commenting on our nominal status as not-so-starving artists, it is more likely that they’re referring to the nature of our work itself. Home, family, belongings—nothing in our life is left un- deconstructed in our art—often quite literally, as sofas, bedroom walls, and dinnerware come under physical attack. We draw no line between our lives and our art.
We are the photographers and the photographed; our home is our canvas, our family is our subject, and our actions are our content.
As the collaborative artistic team of Hillerbrand+Magsamen, we draw upon the rich Fluxus practice of incorporating humor, performance, video and everyday objects and we expand our personal family life into a contemporary art conversation about family dynamics, suburban life and American consumer excess. This new kind of “suburban fluxus” generates work that documents and re-contextualizes our objects and possessions of self, family and culture, the role of the camera in contemporary art and challenges presumptions of the everyday.
We have presented our videos in prestigious international film and media festivals including SCOPE Basel, WAND V Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, New York Underground Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Boston Underground Film Festival, LA Freewaves New Media Art Festival. Our cinematic based installations have been seen in Hong Gah Museum in Taiwan, the Hudson River Museum, Woodstock Center for Photography, Museum of Fine Art Houston, Light Factory Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film, and Houston Center for Photography. We have been awarded grants from Austin Film Society’s Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund, Ohio Arts Council, Houston Arts Alliance and a Carol Crow Fellowship from the Houston Center for Photography.
We live and work in Houston, TX with our two children Madeleine and Emmett."