Weaving a Void

In addition to a new installation created from research on Kyoto’s “Ubuya” (ancient birthing hut) in Ohara Shrine, Amanohashidate sandbar, and Kamigamo Shrine, a “salmon skin boat “created in Niigata, a “kotatsu lion” created in Takamatsu, and Ayaka Nakamura’s biomorphic hat and earthenware, “shell boat“, etc. will be exhibited. The boat is a vessel; a metaphor for an island with respect to the continent, and a symbol connecting life and death, wherein we are born on the placental boat and return on a coffin in the capacity of a boat. Hats, kotatsu, and masks are hollow entities that come to fruition via people entering them, and to create an “object” known as a vessel means also creating a “void” at the same time. The objects born from two people unconsciously selecting and weaving together vessels (“utsuro“) while traveling through various regions of Japan are connected to the vessel known as “Zuiun-an”, and through encounters with the people who visit this place, the unknown born from within the vessel is called forth.