Artworks

“DROPS”

2016
A variety of things and threads I encountered in Omiya, letter paper, envelope, stamp
Dimensions variable (Installation)

　“SAITAMA TRIENNALE 2016”
　September 24 – December 11, 2016　 former cafeteria in the Saitama Civic Hall Omiya

https://saitamatriennale.jp/en/

AKIYAMA Sayaka’s creations are based on the intensive research she conducts on a particularplace and the relationship between the place and herself. This time, the place AKIYAMA focused on in Saitama City was Omiya ward, a transportation hub where multiple railways crisscross, carrying various people and supplies. In this intersection of various people, objects, and elements, AKIYAMA, during the period of her stay there from June 6 through September 23, used the inspiration she absorbed from the things she encountered in daily life, the routes she had taken, and the energy of local places, and connecte　d them together to create aninstallation that weaves together and visualizesher encounter with citizens and memories of her stay in Omiya. Walking down the stairways to the former cafeteria in the Saitama Civic Hall Omiya, a room filled with warmth appears, like a lantern shining in the dusk. Reminiscent of a theatrical stage, what you see through a glass in soon reveled to be a collection of numerous letters hanging down from the ceiling—materials AKIYAMA had encountered, picked up, and rescued from slipping away in daily life. The immense amount of letters were all individually written by AKIYAMA herself, and she had deliberately stitched in her discoveries and encounters needle by needle with various colorful threads, and continued to send them to her own address over a period of three and a half months. The words and memories, which had traveled through time and distance on their way back to her, are never to be opened again. Such confined memories and traces of everyday life, falling down as an immense amount of drops, sway quietly within the orange light. The scene reminds us of a familiar dreamscape where words and emotions with no destination—the same words and emotions that disappear as soon as they appear in our daily lives—continue to drift.

Teiko Hinuma　(Project Director of Saitama Triennale 2016)

Excerpt from the “Saitama Triennale 2016” catalog.