ホームに戻るBack to home
ABOUT GASBON — A PLACE FOR CREATIVE METABOLISM

Art, people, place and time
in constant metabolism.

GASBON METABOLISM is a complex for art and creation in Akeno-cho, Hokuto, Yamanashi.

ART, PEOPLE, PLACE, AND TIME IN CONSTANT METABOLISM.
02 — WHAT IS GASBON?

To show works. To make. To stay. To store. To connect people, city and region, culture and economy. A place where different times and activities intersect and generate the next movement.

GASBON is not a museum, a gallery, or only an artist-in-residence. Exhibitions, production, residency, shooting, storage and maintenance of works, talks, music, markets, education — multiple activities proceed at once, within a single place.

What matters here is not to converge activity toward a single purpose, but to keep a state in which different people, ideas and speeds can affect one another — not one facility, but an environment where multiple movements coexist.

03 — FROM FACTORY TO CREATIVE HUB
From Factory to Creative Hub

Built in 1970, this place served for over fifty years as a factory for the tripod maker VELBON. A place where parts were made, assembled and shipped out. Its walls, floors, stairs and windows — the remaining equipment and small scratches — hold the memory of long years of handwork and industry. In 2021, GAS AS I/F encountered this former factory.

Before renovation
Traces and equipment
Cleaning and repair
6,200
SITE AREA
5,200
TOTAL FLOOR AREA
50+ years
AS A FACTORY
04 — THE PLACE IS STILL BEING MADE
The Place Is Still Being Made

Clearing out vast amounts of left-behind objects, examining the building's condition, repairing walls, polishing floors, and adding needed equipment little by little. Local craftspeople, artists, creators and friends took part in the renovation. Rather than completing everything at once, we think while actually using the space, and keep working on it as needed.

GASBON is not a finished facility. It is an ongoing place that keeps changing through the activity of people.

A PLACE TUNED BY QUESTIONS, MAINTAINED BY REAL HANDS.
05 — WHY "GASBON"?
Why "GASBON"?

The name GASBON comes from the GAS of "GASBOOK" — the art and design project GAS AS I/F has continued since 1996 — and the BON of "VELBON," which operated here for many years.

Rather than overwriting past memory with new activity, we keep the time that came before and the time about to begin within a single name. The name GASBON contains the very making of this place.

GAS + BON = GASBON
GASBOOK × VELBON
06 — WHY "METABOLISM"?
Why "Metabolism"?

Metabolism means the continual renewal by which living things take something in from outside, transform it within, and update their state. Culture and creation are the same.

New works are born; past works are reconsidered; different generations meet; urban activity moves to the region and regional wisdom returns to the city. Works, people, techniques and knowledge move, changing meaning within different environments. GASBON calls this movement Creative Metabolism.

07 — CULTURE MOVES AT MANY SPEEDS
Culture Moves at Many Speeds

Culture does not have a single speed. The heat a one-night event generates. An exhibition over several months. Relationships that grow over years. Works reappraised decades later. The memory of a land holding thousands of years.

GASBON does not set short-term excitement against long-term accumulation. Some value becomes visible at once through trends and markets; other value is found only after a long time. Without excluding different speeds, we let them exist in the same place. From there, the metabolism of culture begins.

08 — NOT HOSPITALITY, BUT CREATIVE STIMULATION
Not Hospitality, but Creative Stimulation

GASBON does not aim to provide comfort alone. A vast space. Traces of the factory. The cold of winter. A building that must be continually repaired. Production that does not go to plan. This place has elements that make people pause a little, and think.

Having visited, you want to make something. To talk with someone. To look at a work again. To reconsider your own work and life from another angle. GASBON does not hand you answers; it creates an environment where questions and actions arise.

YOUR CREATIVE MOMENTUM STARTS HERE.
09 — ONE PLACE, MANY FUNCTIONS
See. Make. Stay. Store. Meet. Move.

We do not separate the place for seeing from the place for making, nor the time before a work is finished from the time after an exhibition ends. At GASBON, the many functions surrounding creation coexist in one place.

Exhibition

EXHIBITION

Works and space change one another. Contemporary art, design, photography, video, music, performance — exhibitions that can only arise here, in relation to the factory's scale, light, sound, temperature and remaining time.

View exhibitions →

Residency

RESIDENCY

Staying shifts the premises of making. Walking the area, meeting people, touching different rhythms of life, holding time in which nothing is made — all of it, taken as part of the creative process.

About residency →

Studio

STUDIO

A place to see works, and the site where works are born. Large-scale production, shooting, woodwork, ceramics, assembly, experiment, maintenance — the time and labour of making-in-progress matter here too.

Use the space →

Warehouse

WAREHOUSE

Storage is not a halt. A work does not lose its role the moment an exhibition ends. It is stored, restored, shown again, moved elsewhere, and gains a new context. From storage to the next movement.

Program

PROGRAM

Different people gather, each at their own distance. Talks, workshops, music, markets, art book fairs, bon odori, school and university programs — not one way to take part, but an entrance suited to each.

View programs →

Art, Culture & Economy

ART, CULTURE AND ECONOMY

We treat art neither as a mere tool for regional revitalisation nor as something cut off from the economy. Without hiding the contradictions between culture and economy, and without subordinating one to the other, we build a sustainable relation between them.

16 — AKENO, HOKUTO, YAMANASHI
Akeno, Hokuto, Yamanashi

GASBON is in Asao-shinden, Akeno-cho, Hokuto, Yamanashi. Looking out to the Southern Alps, Yatsugatake and Kayagatake, this area holds traces of Jomon-era settlements and of people who moved in search of obsidian. From ancient times, people have moved in search of what they needed and knew, meeting others from different lands and exchanging techniques and culture.

GASBON, too, is not a place that carries culture one way from city to region. We aim for a place where the time, wisdom, industry, nature and life already present in this land intersect with expression arriving from outside.

19 — INFORMATION
Information
NameGASBON METABOLISM
Location12 Asao-shinden, Akeno-cho, Hokuto, Yamanashi
Opened to publicAugust 20, 2022
Site areaapprox. 6,200㎡
Total floor areaapprox. 5,200㎡
FunctionsExhibition space, artist-in-residence, production studio, photo studio, art storage, woodworking, ceramics facilities, shop, event space
Operated byGAS AS I/F(GAS AS INTERFACE CO., LTD.
STILL ALIVE
AND KICKING.

展示が入れ替わる。アーティストが訪れる。作品が運び込まれる。誰かが壁を直す。新しい企画が始まる。ときには失敗し、計画を修正し、別の方法を探す。その反復によって、GASBON METABOLISMは存在しています。

Exhibitions change. Artists visit. Works are carried in. Someone repairs a wall. A new project begins. Sometimes we fail, revise the plan, and look for another way. Through that repetition, GASBON METABOLISM exists.

GASBONは、画面の中だけでは説明しきれません。実際に訪れ、あなた自身の反応を確かめてください。

GASBON cannot be fully explained on a screen. Come in person, and find out how you respond.

Plan your visit → Current exhibitions Membership