Chiharu Shiota: Drawing Memories in the Air

Trace of Memory, The Mattress Factory, 2013 (Photo: Priyanka Sacheti)

I remember being thoroughly enchanted the first time I encountered Japanese installation and performance artist, Chiharu Shiota's work, Trace of Memory at The Mattress Factory, a contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States. Utilising both the spatial landscape of an abandoned 19th century row house as well as specific objects such as a wedding dress, hospital bed, and a pile of suitcases, Shiota enmeshed it all in intricate black wool-thread creations. Everything was visible and yet, not; it was not unlike cobwebs studding the dusty corners of an abandoned house, simultaneously representing decay and life. In a sense, Shiota's work resurrects an otherwise dead house, creating a physically tangible web of narratives through the confluence of thread, space, and air. Perhaps, enchanted was also an appropriate word to describe my engagement with her work, for there was a fairy-tale, other-worldly quality to her work that I had never previously witnessed or experienced elsewhere. Researching further and talking with the artist herself, I discovered that the wool-thread is a signature motif of her work and through which she quite literally binds memories, past, people, and objects.

Born in Osaka, Japan, Chiharu moved to Berlin, Germany in 1997, where she studied with Marina Abramovic and Rebecca Horn, forerunners of the performance art movement; she has exhibited all over the world, presenting her installation art in both solo and group exhibitions.

What does installation art specifically mean to her? “I love empty spaces; the minute I come across one such as an abandoned building or an empty exhibition space, I feel as if my body and spirit transcend a certain dimension - and I can then start from scratch,” Chiharu says, presenting the abandoned or blank exhibition space as one void of references or associations and which she is subsequently free to re-interpret and realise her imagined worlds in. What particularly excites her about installation art is the immediacy of communication and engagement with the viewer. “[The viewers] can immediately feel as to what I am trying to show...unlike a painting or sculpture where you may have to engage with it for quite a while before distilling its meaning,” she opines.

While her work is largely rooted in the soil of her personal memories and concerned with theme of remembering and oblivion, it also sprouts and entwines itself with larger collective memories as well; one glimpses it in installations such as Dialogue from DNA in Krakow, Poland and which was subsequently recreated in Germany and Japan. Currently living and working in Germany, Chiharu reminisces about how it is linked to the time she returned to Japan three years after moving to Germany. "I wore my old shoes and experienced a curious situation; they didn't fit me any more even though they were the same size. This sense of dislocation persisted even when I was interacting with my parents and old friends. Nothing specifically had changed - and yet, I felt differently about them," she says.

The scenario made her start thinking about the gulf between the idealised memories when one is away from the home and yearning to return to it -- and actually being in home itself. "I began to interrogate the idea of missing and memories and I fused it with the idea of old shoes and the memories associated with them," she says, elaborating that the installation consisted of 400 disused shoes that people had donated along with notes containing specific memories associated with the shoe. Looking at the installation (below), it is almost as if the threads anchor the memories in form of the shoes in place, lest they vanish into nothingness and being unremembered.

Chiharu Shiota, Dialogue from DNA, (2004) Manggha, Centre of Japanese Art and Technology, Krakow, Poland, Shoes, Thread Photograph: Sunhi Mang

Chiharu has often remarked that working with thread is a bit like drawing in air. “When I began working as a painter, I felt that two-dimensional drawings were limiting me. I needed more space so I started working on installations and using thread in order to achieve a three dimensional drawing, so to speak. The threads since then have been a fundamental aspect of my work,” she says. These threads represent multiple meanings in her diverse output of work, whether of connections or ensnarement or opacity.

Apart from the threads embroidering the surface of Chiharu's installation spaces, they are also home to objects which Chiharu frequently and quite literally weaves into her works; these objects are plucked from the quotidian, facilitating both the unspooling of a narrative while crucially being a narrative in themselves. They also signify absences, absences which become the works' fundamental bedrock. "Specific objects inspire me when I experience a personal association or link with them as I did when putting on my old shoes. Abandoned objects are laden with even more memories and associations," she mentions, suggesting that this surplus of memories adds further narrative texture to her work. "The object itself has a meaning, being a signifier and then my role would be to weave its memories and meaning together using the threads."

Chiharu Shiota, During Sleep, (2004), Saint-Marie-Madeleine, Lille, France, Thread, Beds, Performers
Photographer: Sunhi Mang

While objects frequently figure as the central components of her installation works, her works are also distinctively body-oriented, as evidenced in works such as During Sleep, which features real-life women asleep on hospital beds and the space enshrouded in her customary fog of thread, bringing to forth gendered associations with the fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty.

An Elemental Ode to Space: Neha Vedpathak

Weight of Dreams

Strong, elemental, and palpable, Neha Vedpathak's works derive inspiration from nature, rituals, and materials to produce thought-provoking installations; whether it's transforming handmade Japanese paper into delicate, exquisitely wrought objects or abstracting soil into soil mounds studding a wall, they invite viewers to pause and reflect by way of engagement. The interrogation, exploration, and manipulation of space also forms the central focus of Neha's work, compelling us to be more minutely aware of the dynamics and narratives of space.

Her Blueprint talked to Neha to find out more about her work.

Could you tell us about your background?

I'm from India. I was born in Pune, Maharashtra but moved around India quite a bit due to my father's job. I have been living in United States for seven years.

You were earlier working upon abstract paintings; however, you then decided to shift into installation art/three-dimensional art-work. How did you make and find this transition? Do you intend to return to abstract painting any time soon or are you now entirely focusing on installation art? 

Yes, I was primarily a painter until late 2008; for many years I prolifically worked in two-dimensional art before feeling saturated. I then decided to expand my practice by moving onto three dimensional works; this transition was slow and difficult. I experimented a lot, trying to find a medium/material that aesthetically resonated with me and gave me conceptual satisfaction. As I wasn't a trained sculptor and didn't have access to many tools and equipment, I worked with what was available in my studio: acrylic polymer, handmade paper, mirrors, and wax. It was through this process of trial and error that I discovered plucking, which is a process I developed in where I separate the fibers of Japanese handmade paper using a tiny push-pin. I remember teasing the paper in this fashion and thinking, it's such a cool technique but there is no way I can make a complete body of work using this process, which is slow, meticulous and time-consuming. However, I went and accomplished exactly that, the results being witnessed at my N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Miami exhibition held last year. There was and is something enthralling and satisfying about this process. As for painting, I did return to it in late 2011– early 2012 making only a few works but approaching it through my new materials: soil and paper. I have also been continually making drawings throughout this period and so maintaining a link to the flat surface via that. 

Working with materials has obviously yielded many discoveries for you. Having earlier used hand-made Japanese paper in your paintings over the years, you now wrought exquisite, delicate lace-like objects through plucking. How did you end up working with Japanese paper and how would you describe your experiences? 

 My exposure to some of the most beautiful Japanese paper happened through a Japanese Canadian artist, a print-maker whom I met in India during during a residency program in 2005. She gifted me different kinds of Japanese papers. I loved them but didn't know what to do with them; after some time, I started collaging bits of paper into my paintings, still not contemplating too much about them. I nevertheless carried them with me through all the studios in India and States I worked in. It was only in 2009 that I approached paper and specifically, this Japanese handmade paper in a new light. It's interesting how this paper travelled and remained with me for 4 years before I was consumed by it. I would say my experience working with paper was gradual and organic. I knew I was attracted to it, not just in terms of its physical qualities but also its hand-made context as well as being aware of Japanese paper-making's rich history; however, it was a while before it assumed personal significance. I would like to believe that when I now approach this paper, it is laden with a deeper sense of understanding and regard, which arises from having forged an intimate history with it over the years. 

                                                     

Ritual is an elemental source of inspiration for you and you also state that you found the process of plucking as akin to slow-chanting (similar to a ritual or repeating a mantra), as heard in the video above. Could you elaborate more on what the processes of creating art means to you? What does art making mean to you? 

That's a profound question. Honestly speaking, it means everything. Creating art is not just a career-choice: it's a way of life for me, my mode of questioning, learning, and understanding. I would not liken it to standardized religion. To me, it's more of a journey and exploration of myself and the world around me. As for the process of making art being ritualistic, I borrow from the practices of ''rituals'' and ''chanting'' which were a part of my upbringing in India. 

Time

You have earlier wrought snow mounds and in your exhibition at N'Namdi Contemporary Gallery, you created a wall-installation studded with soil mounds [above]. You mention that these mounds bring together what is particularly significant to you: material, ritual, and nature. Having talked about the first two, could you elaborate on what nature means to you in context to the soil and snow mounds?

I have been in awe of nature as long as I can remember. Even as a child, flora and faunae, rocks, stars, and oceans constantly amazed me. I am intrigued by the constant duality that we find in nature: it's simplicity and complexity, strength and vulnerability, its benevolence and destruction and finally, it's essential adaptability. I have sought to mimic some of these aspects through my soil mound installation at N'Namdi Contemporary Gallery. Talking specifically about snow mounds and soil mounds, I started making them around the time that I had started missing and longing for my home country, India. The idea of physically touching the soil/snow and holding it felt valuable and meaningful; however, it was also complex and challenging working with it, snow and soil being natural elements were hard to manage.