The book Times of Crisis accompanies the homonymous project by Elisa Caldana (Pordenone, 1986) and Aki Nagasaka (Osaka, 1980), started in Tokyo in 2018 and further developed in Bologna in 2021 for the venue of Villa delle Rose. The exhibition, produced as part of the 2021 edition of the ROSE Residencies Program and curated by Giulia Pezzoli, constitutes the outcome of the two artists' stay in Bologna at the MAMbo's Sandra Natali Artist Residency.
The publication, which saw the close collaboration with the Korean graphic designer Ted Hyunhak Yoon, collects fragments from their shared work: a series of stories born and set in Japan and illustrated by professional Manga designers. In the book, whose graphics stylistically recalls an Eighties fanzine, the concepts of crisis and precariousness, core of the artists' research project, are told through six stories and an unpublished interview, thanks to which we can know closely the genesis and the development of the project in Bologna.