Worlds Within
Contemporary art from Japan
2 June 20023 – 7 July 2023
ARB, Cambridge
Kaori Yoshikawa | Makoto Morimura | Marie Nohara | Shin Ikeda | sonsengocchabacco | So Shimada | Hajime Wada
Artworks often afford glimpses into the inner worlds of others: the forms and textures that populate artists’ minds. While some of the artists in this show describe their creative process as an imperfect replication of these inner landscapes, others emphasise the material qualities of the objects they make, and how these gradually percolate into their consciousness along with the ideas they receive from the world around them. The outcome may be unexpected, and imperfectly known in advance; the worlds sensed must first be made in order to be understood, through a process of trial and error that is always subject to material constraints.
This exhibition forms part of an ethnographic research project in which seven contemporary artists and makers from Osaka, Japan, engaged in a year-and-a-half long exchange with an anthropologist (Iza Kavedžija), sharing details of their creative practices through conversations, studio visits, and a variety of diary formats. By engaging with their artworks alongside the stories of their creation, visitors are invited to reflect on the intersections of inner and outer worlds.
More about the artists