Chiharu Shiota: Me Somewhere Else
Blain|Southern London Gallery, London, UK
28 November 2018 – 19 January 2019
As The Art Berries, we recently had the pleasure of visiting Chiharu Shiota’s exhibition Me Somewhere Else at Blain|Southern London—and it was truly captivating. Situated near Regent’s Street and Oxford Street, the gallery makes a great detour during seasonal shopping or a destination for a full art-focused visit.
Upon entering the gallery, you are immediately enveloped by a mesmerizing billowing net of red yarn, seemingly rising from a pair of feet cast from the artist’s own body and stretching to the ceiling where the installation is suspended. The solid, grounded material of the feet contrasts beautifully with the lightness and ephemerality of the net above. Its scale and the bold intensity of the red invite you to step closer, to feel immersed in the work, and even to imagine yourself within its woven labyrinth.
In Asian culture, red is a powerful symbol: it represents blood and the bonds between people. For Shiota, the red yarn evokes the interconnectedness of individuals, the interior of the body, and the complex relationship between body and mind—a network of neural connections that prompts physical and emotional reactions.
With Me Somewhere Else, Shiota explores the idea of human consciousness existing independently of the body, elsewhere beyond the physical. She reflects:
“I feel that my body is connected to the universe, but is my consciousness as well? When my feet touch the earth, I feel connected to the world, to the universe that is spread like a net of human connections. But if I no longer feel my body, where do I go? Where do I go when my body is gone? When my feet no longer touch the ground?” Chiharu Shiota.
In the final room, another striking work caught my attention: a large, empty white dress enveloped in black thread. For Shiota, an empty dress signifies absence, yet it retains an imprint of presence. The piece carries a haunting quality that is both unsettling and deeply poetic. Scattered throughout the space are additional geometric sculptures and a few two-dimensional canvases also made with thread, a medium Shiota employs consistently to explore materiality and memory.
Based in Berlin, Shiota (b. 1972, Osaka, Japan) is best known for her immersive installations, including The Key in the Hand, with which she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Using thread to ‘draw’ in three dimensions, she weaves intricate networks of yarn into and across spaces. Personal experiences serve as the starting point for her work, which delves into the relationships between body, memory, life, and death.
Shiota began her artistic journey studying painting but felt constrained by canvas and paint. She turned to performance, incorporating her own body, and eventually adopted thread as a formal and conceptual medium. This approach allows her to remove her physical presence while still addressing the profound ideas central to her practice.
You can see us, The Art Berries, performing next to Shiota’s artworks below.
Leave a Reply