"Something that slips through" Yamakoshi Azusa December 2011, 12 - December 12, 2011
Venue: Art Gallery T+
Date: December 2011, 12 - January 12, 2011
Exhibitor: Azusa Yamakoshi (1st year student majoring in Art and Design)
This is a display of memories.
I don't even know what kind of memories it is.
T+review
"This is an exhibition of memories." - These are the artist's words about the exhibition. When you enter the exhibition room, you feel as if you have lost track of your own size. Because of the gravel piled up on the floor and the iron pillars standing nearby, the exhibition feels like a landscape viewed from high in the sky.
A light bulb peeks out from between the simple, bright white gravel piled on the floor, like a human being burning for life. The gravel is an ancient desert, like a common memory of humanity. Next to it is an iron pillar that looks like it stands in an industrial area from the time we were born. Two unlit light bulbs are installed on the wall, and numbers indicating location information such as "N40" are written on the floor.
It seems that what the artist expressed in this exhibition is his childhood memories of the Bible. The locations drawn on the floor are his family home, churches, and holy places. A broken light bulb at the top of the wall has lines about Christ written on it. These expressions are not "perfect Bibles," and of course they are difficult to convey to others. These are expressions of the memories of individuals who have lived lives different from others, so this gap is inevitable. That is why I think that if the artist had provided an explanation, we would have been able to touch on his memories even more. They are too abstract to be understood with a single explanation, and a large part is left to the viewer's imagination.
"This is an exhibition of memories." What is it that memories "slip through"? Our memories are carried to us, slipping through the time in which the owner of the memory lived, and through the information that is rampant in the world. The exact circumstances and visual information of the memory gradually crumble, and what remains until the end are the impressions and images inside of us. These certainly exist within us, but it is very difficult to express them in a way that can be conveyed to others. This is probably the case with this exhibition. However, you should be able to sense the image that the artist is trying to express. This exhibition has a somewhat foreign atmosphere, and the air around it is tense. That is what the artist is trying to express. When I think back to when I was a child, the outside of my familiar world really seemed so far away, like a foreign land.
Whether or not you can share images, I think that is "sharing memories." (Emiko Okano)
