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.

Manal al Dowayan: Speaking the Individual and Collective Voice

I Am A Saudi Citizen, silver gelatin print (2007)

Saudi Arabian conceptual artist, Manal al Dowayan works with photography and installation to present both personal and larger narratives; whether exploring the Saudi women's experience or abstracting personal stories, her photography and installations powerfully impact the viewers, inviting them to directly access the heart of her works and contemplate their essence. Having been included in numerous international exhibitions and participated in several residences, she communicates a multi-nuanced collective voice through her singular artistic one, which is embedded in her layered photographic series or enquiring, engaging interactive works. 

 Her Blueprint spoke to Manal to find out more about her journey.

What drew you to art in the first place? What is it that continues to compel you to create?

Well, I am not a writer. I am not a poet. I cannot compose music. I also do not paint. I found myself in the medium of photography and later on, in installation art that interacted with people and spaces. 

Landscape of the Mind, mixed media on paper (2009)

How do you go about conceptualizing a project? What do you mine inspiration from: an anecdote, a dream, a conversation? Or is it a byproduct of an issue/concern that you've been feeling strongly about and meditating upon over the years and which finds its release in the form of the project? 

The art I produce is usually a direct reflection of my life and the ups and downs that exist within it. So while you may find that my main focus is the Saudi women’s experience, some collections such as Landscapes of the Mind and And We Had No Shared Dreams see me exploring more personal subjects. The basis of my works is black and white photography but I recently have begun to introduce more layers to the photograph and the ideas behind it. These layers come in different forms such as silkscreen prints, collage, spray paint, and neon and LED lights. 

Esmi: My Name, Mixed Media Large Scale Installation (2012)

You have invited women to actively participate and engage with your projects such as Esmi-My Name. How would you define their contribution to them? What do they make of it? 

Creating platforms for expression is an exercise that I have explored in several of my projects. It is intensely rewarding to see a large gathering of women of different ages and backgrounds coming together for the purpose of artistic expression and making a collective social statement using culture as their medium of exchange. My participatory art projects have evolved organically from early days when I used to photograph my friends; this process later became the foundation for collective projects in which I invited hundreds of women to collaborate with me. In the participatory art works, Suspended Together and Esmi (My Name) I was searching for the group voice within my community while creating a platform for women to voice their opinion alongside my own. I have always found strength in the collective voice. The participants were also using social media to proudly share their participation, eventually encouraging women from around the world to virtually participate. I was energized by having a group of individuals interact with the artwork and contribute to the concept behind the work through their participation. 

During the Esmi (My Name) project, many participants stayed on in the workshop room until we had turned off the lights and were closing the doors as they wanted the experience to last for as long as possible. The energy in these gatherings was profound and is very difficult to put into words. 

Tree of Guardians (2013)

Moving to specific projects, could you please elaborate about the story behind Tree of Guardians?

My constant questioning of the state of disappearance led me to its counterbalance: the necessary act of preservation. In my previous works, I have explored the issues of preservation of a woman’s name (Esmi), incursions and limitation on the autonomy she traditionally enjoyed (Suspended Together), and the juxtaposition of her conventional representation in Arab society and the reality of her current professional identity and personal potential (I Am). In its fullest sense, however, the act of preservation must transcend the identity of the single, identifiable individual and encompass previous generations of unnamed and sometimes forgotten women that serve as the cultural and social roots for the hopes, dreams and aspirations of today’s women. Therefore, this sculptural installation is both a marker of the individual women that are named on the leaves and captured in the oral histories and a celebration of the many generations of unnamed women who served as the protectors and messengers of authenticity. Suspended Together is a powerful installation that gives the impression of movement and freedom. However, a closer look at the 200 doves allows the viewer to realize that the doves are actually frozen and suspended with no hope of flight. If you examine it even more minutely, it shows that each dove carries on its body a permission document that allows a Saudi woman to travel. Notwithstanding their circumstances, all Saudi women are required to have this document, issued by their appointed male guardian. 

How did you migrate into installation from photography? What was the experience of working on this installation and its overall impact?

Suspended Together is a large installation that was a culmination of multiple years working on the same subject. The dove made its first appearance in my artwork in 2009’s Landscapes of the Mind. Later, I captured them in flight around pieces made for And We Had No Shared Dreams collection in 2010. In Edge of Arabia: TERMINAL I, launched a three-dimensional dove. In all of these artworks, the doves symbolize the issue of movement and imposed guardianship on women in Saudi Arabia. All women in my country need a permission document to be issued by an appointed guardian when she needs to travel so I located this document upon the body of the doves. I asked many leading women from Saudi Arabia (scientists, educators, engineers, and artists) to donate their permission document to this project and the result was a flock of doves that appear to be in-flight but in reality they were suspended and not moving. This installation was a new experience for me and allowed me to explore a new, alternative way of expressing myself. Although the photograph remains the basis of my work, I enjoy experimenting with interesting mediums and techniques and enlarging the scope of my creative expression through installation. The State of Disappearance juxtaposes the ideas of preservation/disappearance and representation of Saudi women. 

Unheard Sounds, archival photo paper on dibond with plexiglass lettering (2013)

When you make statements about gender through your projects, do you feel that you are radically pushing the envelope? What has been the response to your art in Saudi Arabia, as in terms of general feedback and more specifically,  gendered responses? 

Generally speaking, I don't observe or wait for the viewer's response. I start a conversation with my artwork and then walk out of the room, so to speak. 

The notion of documenting the past and also, being mindful of appreciating how the past was constructed is obviously very important to you, as we can see in projects such as If I Forget You, Don't Forget Me. What significance does the project hold both in terms of a personal and larger national narrative? 

The project was dedicated to the documentation of my late father's memory through the collective memory of his peers, both men and women. The project therefore holds huge emotional and sentimental significance to me. It was a very personal journey and the only link to the national narrative was that my father's generation was finally documented. 

Find out more about Manal al Dowayan's work here.

Images courtesy Manal al Dowayan and Cuadro Fine Art Gallery.

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.

Suki Chan: Viewing Through Prisms of Senses

Still Point, Film Installation (2012)

Abstracting from a smorgasbord of experiences, influences, and issues, installation artist and curator Suki Chan traverses multiple terrains and teases out the familiar and the unfamiliar. Describing her work as using light, moving image, and sound to explore our physical and psychological experience of space, Chan's artworks invite viewers to participate in an entirely experiential experience, literally immersing themselves into the parallel universes she constructs. Whether navigating the journey from macro to micro or engineering a marriage between sound and image in her works, she seeks to both resolve her personal questions and ponderings as much as compel the viewer to view through multi-faceted prisms of senses and accordingly engage with her art.

In the following Q & A, Chan provides a fascinating account of the processes through which she approaches and constructs her productions.

You were born in Hong Kong and now reside in London. How have both these places defined your work? Do your roots influence you on a subliminal level or do you access a more universal range of experiences in your work? 

Your question reminds me of a wonderful quote by Borges, “I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.” Many places that I have lived in throughout my life have defined me and my work, ranging from my early childhood experiences in Hong Kong to Oxford, teenage years in Winchester and then, studying in London. Each of these places, with their own character, geographical and cultural differences - rural versus urban, traditional and modern, Western and Eastern - have left their imprint on me at significant points of my life. My early works were informed by often contrasting experiences of these places. 

The move from Hong Kong to Oxford is perhaps the most significant. For me, it is the juxtaposition of places that triggers certain interests or attitudes towards a subject matter. I am always curious why certain ideas, customs, beliefs and values exist in one society and place but not in another. From a young age, I experienced this contrast of ideas between living in England and Hong Kong. Growing up straddling two cultures, I was exposed to different viewpoints, beliefs, customs, traditions and value systems as well as the inconsistencies that exists between languages, when meaning does not follow through from one language to another, especially if they have a completely different structure and symbol system. The concept of time in Chinese for example is not conveyed through the use of tenses and verb forms and that was very confusing for me as a child as I was learning English. As a child, I found those inconsistencies perplexing but as an artist, it is such a rich terrain to draw from. 

Moving from one place to another, or one culture to another, you come to understand a little more the interrelationship between people and places as well as the importance of context, when things do not necessarily relate and connect. My roots influence my work in many ways, sometimes subliminally, but I consciously choose to explore concepts and emotions that are universal, from the abstract and metaphysical, such as time and space, to the personal, such as home and belonging and the somewhere in-between, our relationship to our environment and to society.

What impels you to create a work: an arresting sight, fragment from a dream, or a line from a book/writing that refuses to go away from your head? Subsequently, as you build up the work, what are the influences motivating the process of creation? Do you read extensively, journal and make notes, and/or expose yourself to kinds of cinema?

It is all of these things and more. I have previously been inspired by the memories of a place, the sight of a starling murmuration, a line from a poem, an idea or a metaphor from a novel, a conversation, a chance encounter on a train, a difficult political situation, meditation and walking. I am impelled to make work because of my curiosity to understand why things are the way they are or why we feel and behave in a certain way in a given place. Much of my process of making art is intuitive though I enjoy looking for patterns of thought. I often ask myself why I am drawn to this and not that? Why do certain things resonate with me more than others? Sometimes, ideas and thoughts that seem to be separate will come together later on as I build up the work. Often, it is the contrast between ideas and materials that allows me to draw attention to it or imbue it with new narratives.

Tomorrow is Our Permanent Address, Video Installation (2008)

Tulika Ladsariya: Chronicling the Art of Labor

Bricks, 2012, Enamel and Ink on brick

A former banker who found herself inexorably migrating into the world of art, Chicago-based Indian artist, Tulika Ladsariya focuses her artistic lens on exploring the dynamics of labor, language, and literacy through her paintings and sculptures. She describes her paintings as a social commentary on the division of society through the iconography of labor, whereas Tulika's installations are derived from familiar construction materials procured from her surroundings; this enables her to empathize with the workforce that she depicts and thus, think of art as labor.

Vibrant, textured, and punctuated with layers and meanings, Tulika's work takes the viewer into the landscapes and mindscapes that the laborers inhabit. Here she talks to Her Blueprint about the scope of her creative voyage so far.

What initially attracted you towards art? What compels you to keep on creating?
 I started my career working in portfolio management for a multi-national bank. However, I am a very visual person: I see and think in images and color. I enjoy working with my hands, philosophizing and questioning. To that end, a short sabbatical to study art in London turned into a lifelong career.

Many things compel me to create: the love of what I do, the need to make a difference through my art, the fear of obscurity,and the security of what I have renounced to be an artist. It is the desire to give shape to ideas- translating something intangible, like feeling and emotion, into something tangible such as a painting.

Could you take us through a journey of your paintings? How have they evolved in terms of technique and theme? What has remained unchanged? 
My work was initially very influenced by what was around me; specifically, Mumbai, which was in a constant state of disrepair. It then began to engage with the people who build and inhabit it. Some elements of my work are more abstract and others very graphic. The theme has been widening with time, encompassing more of what I feel, rather than merely just what I see. My use of color is one aspect of work which has significantly evolved; even though my palette is still bright and evocative, it has become more balanced over time.

 

Journey by Day, 2010, Mixed Media on Gessobord 'Burden of Dreams' and 'Improbable Elevation' depict realistic figures while 'Palliative Endeavors' is rooted in a much more abstract space. What motivated this transition? What is the essence of 'Palliative Endeavors'? 'Palliative Endeavors' [example from series above] was inspired by the vibrant cityscape. It used geometric shapes and collage to bring together form, texture, and color; it regards the city as a space devoid of humans and the impact of congested living upon the environment. The title of the works refer to my own palliative endeavor to fix the damage inflicted on it through the use of plaster tape [as such used in healing fractures] upon the two-dimensional surface. Moving from the physical space to the people who build and inhabit that space seemed like a natural transition. This gave birth to the series, 'Improbable Elevation' and 'Burden of Dreams' [examples below]. Even my more figurative paintings have elements of texture and abstraction that I weave in and out from.

Graceful Burden (diptych), Acrylic on board, Mixed media on faux brick panel