"About Overcoming" Sayuri Tsuchiya January 2016th - January 1th, 12
Venue: Art Gallery T+
Period: January 2016th - 1th, 12 (except for the last day, which closes at 1:14)
Exhibitor: Sayuri Tsuchiya (1st year graduate student, Integrated Design)
Installation Works
T+review
What does it mean to "transcend"? Is it to step over the white line in front of you? Is it to overcome your past self? That's all I can imagine. But this exhibition considers "transcending" from a completely different angle. A little further back from the center of the gallery, concrete blocks are neatly lined up in a row. What is the white that hangs slightly above the concrete blocks? In the back are headphones. This strange space, composed of silence and floor blocks, asks a question. The answer is the sound of rippling waves coming from the headphones. The exhibition is based on the recordings of the artist's June 2015 interviews with the construction work of a huge lake barrier in the coastal area of Tohoku and the people surrounding it. The voice of an elderly man speaking against the backdrop of swirling nature, whether it be the sound of waves or the sound of wind, sounds like he is carrying something deeper than the sea. The artist says it is the voice of a man who makes salt for a living. The concrete blocks, which are probably meant to resemble a seawall, and the white color that looks like salt. I realized that I had easily stepped over them and reached the back. I wonder what I was thinking when I stepped over it, when I crossed it. I just kept walking forward without thinking about anything.
In Tohoku, huge salt barriers are being built to protect towns, but behind the scenes there are people who are worried about the impact they will have on salt production. When a young person like me looks only forward and thinks we should move forward, it is merely a passing point. We will easily cross it. But for those who have settled in this land and have roots that are deep, deep down to the bottom of the sea, it is where they should be. In Tohoku today, there are those who straddle the sea barrier from above and those who look up from below. When we think we have "crossed" it, what have we ended up crossing? What have we used as a stepping stone? (Furuya Hanako)
