video ︎︎
Frank Tang: Akiyoshidai Daydreaming
鄧啓耀：白日夢到秋吉台
Date: 23 March to 04 April 2026
Venue: Crash.a.space
Akiyoshidai Daydreaming documents my artist residency at the Akiyoshidai International Art Village in Japan in early 2025. Initially, I intended to extend my ongoing research on “monuments” toward the realm of “natural monuments.” This concept was first proposed by the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who believed that the interactions among geological, climatic, and biological elements form the Earth as a dynamic whole.
Approximately 350 million years ago, Akiyoshidai was a coral reef beneath the sea. Due to crustal movements, these limestone layers were uplifted above sea level, forming the plateau seen today. Over millions of years, carbonic acid in rainwater and groundwater continuously dissolved the limestone, creating Japan’s largest limestone cave, Akiyoshidō. This land has sustained local communities and given rise to a 600-year-old tradition known as the yaki-yama (controlled burning) ritual—using fire to cleanse the land and encourage new plant growth—demonstrating the relationship between humans and nature, as well as reverence for the natural world. Akiyoshidai carries the memory of both deep sea and land, embodying the wisdom and culture of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. It is a “natural monument” where time, life, and culture intertwine.
During the residency period, I often sat in meditation on the Akiyoshidai plateau or entered Akiyoshidō Cave to sketch, capturing the images of the land. After returning to Hong Kong, this landscape continued to appear in my dreams, which led me to create Akiyoshidai Daydreaming in hopes of recreating the scenery and sensations of that experience.
This exhibition presents a 12‑square‑meter image within CRASH, a space of less than 28 square meters, immersing viewers as if they were physically present on the Akiyoshidai plateau. As Giuliana Bruno has noted, large‑scale panoramic landscapes extend interior space, producing bodily illusions that allow viewers to drift between indoor and outdoor realms. In addition, I collected wind data from the Japan Meteorological Agency recorded at Akiyoshidai between January and March 2025. Through programming, this data drives 200 fans installed in the space, blowing across the projected landscape so that viewers can sense the atmospheric conditions of that moment.
This uncontrollable natural energy is translated into controllable code and perceptible art, endowing the exhibition space with organic vitality and creating a displaced experience of body, space, and time between interior and exterior.
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Creative Partners
Marble Print Clay @marbleprintclay
Things That Move @thingsthatmove.xyzNous
Key Visual
MAJO @majohongkong
Exhibition photos
Wong Pak Hang @pakhangs