MUR 009 + YUKARI KAIHORI + LIVING THINGS
In her residency project, Yukari expressed a profound concern for the environment and explored its connection to the various value systems of the island. Through her multidisciplinary practice, she examined the complex social, political, and material relationships between bodies, territories, minerals, and the earth. She wrote, “The idea of paying attention to immediacy, the everyday ecology of things we might otherwise not notice, has been the focus of my work for the last few years.” This fascination for diverse frameworks resonated with to her upbringing in both Japan and New Zealand, where she observed inherent differences and similarities in cultural values.
At the Green Rabbit, Yukari crafted installation using an assortment ofmaterial collected during her time on the shoreline of Ishigaki’s Northen Peninsula. They included washed-up shoes from Yasura Bay, coral fragments from Akaishi Beach, plastic floats, debris, and glass shards from Pink Turtle Beach, sand from Sunset Beach, Hibiscus flowers and clay from our garden, and incense from the Yaeyama Islands.
The installation extended seamlessly from the external to the internal spaces on the ground floors. The displaced things gave rise to a new terrain , fundamentally altering our relationship with the surroundings. The journey commenced at the front coral garden, ascended onto the 'engawa,' and traversed into the interior, where four tatami were intentionally removed to facilitate the integration of the drifted materials. Discarded, lost, displaced, and drifted objects could be traced back to their port of origin in China, unveiling a narrative of regional mapping and interconnectedness.
Yukari also made use of, the clay gathered from the back garden to imprint leaves and coral fragments. A wasp seized some of the clay, constructing a nest on the studio window. Throughout Yukari's presentation, the melodic crooning of the neighbouring frogs echoed within the room.Hence, the exhibition site and the artist's studio evolved into a 'habitat,' where artworks seamlessly integrated into the ecosystem of the exhibition site.
Yukari Kaihori is an artist with Japanese heritage currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand where she works on a Doctoral degree at Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland. Her work mainly concerns ideas of the More-than-Human-World and the immediacy of mundane places.
Recent exhibitions include The Quiet Place at Meanwhile, Te Whanganui-a-Tara in 2022, In Searching for Deities at RM Gallery, and After Nature, Follow Where the Rain Goes at Elam School of Fine Arts, both in Tāmaki Makaurau 2021. She has exhibited her works in the UK, Japan and New Zealand.