France Japan by bicycle - way in and back, writing a book
On the road again
Emma et Garance
19
Contributions
24 days
Remaining
€3,270
Out of €10,000
33 %
France Japan by bicycle - way in and back, writing a book
We are Emma and Garance, an artistic and cycling duo. We began working together 7 years ago, brought together by our shared love for materials, experimentation, and travel by bike—interests that have led us into projects that might seem absurd at first glance. In 2022, we left France to cycle to Japan. Today, we’re back on the road after spending a year in Japan, still with our bikes, crafted by the frame maker Swanee Ravonison. This first experience of slow, unprotected travel, covering nearly 17,000 km over almost a year, marked the beginning of a new way of creating and sharing stories. One that draws on the language of the road, its paths, and its materials. Through cycling, we chose to connect, as much as possible, all kinds of spaces—green and barren, urban and industrial—encountering trucks, gas stations, open-air dumps, industrial zones, as well as pine and cedar forests, the high plateaus, and the salt of the Dead Sea. We were able to experience a landscape that was long and continuous, questioning our relationship with distances and movement.
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Allocation of funds
What the fundraising will be used for After self-financing our cycling journey to Japan, we are now turning to you through this platform. Your support will enable us to begin writing a book that we have been thinking about since our arrival in Japan. We are already calling it "The Pine Needle Bed" This campaign will allow us to start writing the book, but also to undertake its visual and tactile research phase. We want this book to be a true object, where the choice of paper, ink, and the printing of images reflect the spirit of our journey. The road inspires us in many ways, especially in the materials we encounter: dust, asphalt, metal, roadside plants... all elements that make up the atmosphere we have lived in over the past few years. To move forward with our ideas, we need to find the right artisans for graphic design, printing, and explore together the technical means necessary to realize our project. We left Japan on October 14, 2024, and the writing is progressing this November in the Kyrgyz mountains, where temperatures sometimes drop to -10°C. We had taken the train as far as Kashgar from the port city of Weihai to arrive before the mountain passes closed for the season. One thing we’ve really understood from our journey so far is that the road is shaped as we move forward, through encounters and geopolitical changes. We will therefore remain flexible and adapt to what comes, things we cannot anticipate. The funds raised through the rewards will allow us to settle in different locations along the way to France, to continue working on the writing and graphic research for the book. Why a book? The book is the object that came to us naturally as a way to archive and build our shared memory. Writing a book is also a long journey, especially when it's a collaboration between two people. We want to capture in writing, images, and materials the memories, spaces, and reflections that have shaped us since we’ve been on the road. We imagine it as a contemporary travel narrative—not in a strictly chronological order. Or rather, more like the experience of a journey where we encounter a different sense of time, influenced by our new constraints and freedoms. The choice of the bicycle is, above all, a way for us to move slowly, opening the door to magical, epic encounters that would never happen otherwise. With people who help us, offer to let us sleep at their homes, or who, among other things, provide us with snacks or courage at the side of the road. We actually identify much more as roadies than as adventurers. It’s an adjective we hold dear because it places us on that paved road, which in the end, we've traveled the most. This road, with which we have a contradictory relationship. It’s both a magic carpet that allows us to reach places that would otherwise seem far away, and yet, it’s also the very material that sometimes melts beneath our wheels, shimmers when it rains, becomes pockmarked with roots, earthquakes, and trucks, sometimes smells like a carcass, divides the landscape in two, and cradles the leaves that stain it. The Rewards We have designed our rewards based on the past two years, spent on the road and during our artistic residency in Japan. We’ve selected photographs from our journey, each reflecting moments or observations that have left a mark on us and that we want to explore and develop in the book. Each image will be accompanied by a short text, which will serve as the foundation for the book's writing. Throughout the journey, we have been sketching in our notebooks, capturing moments that help us anchor ourselves to a place and preserve a sensitive trace of it. Upon our return, we will print a small edition of these drawings made over the past two and a half years on the road, as well as during our year in Japan. Finally, for the third reward, we’ve crafted envelopes out of washi paper using the "sukashi" technique. Each envelope is unique and allows light to pass through, creating a pattern. Through these envelopes, you can already try to guess which of the three photographs from our France-Japan journey we have chosen to send you. You’ll also catch a glimpse of the text related to that image. These mailings will be sent along the way, from a country we will pass through by bike and train as we make our way to France from Japan. For eight months, thanks to the paper artisans (pictured above with Myu during an experimental Nagashizuki session), we have been able to explore the kōzo fiber, immersing ourselves in the process of creating washi. We participated in the harvesting of the wood, the cooking, the stripping, and all the steps of the fiber transformation process. Together with the artisans, we explored several techniques, such as sukashi (filigree paper), rakusuishi (water projections), and unryu (raw fiber mixed with pulp). This work is part of the continuation of our journey and allows us to invest in the next steps of our projects: the return by bike and the writing of the book. Your support touches us deeply and helps us move forward with what’s to come.