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<\/p>\nInstallation view:\u00a0Ring of Fire – Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul <\/i>(Night), 2024\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo<\/p>\n
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One of the hundred of islands in the Seto Inland Sea, Naoshima has become known as the \u201cart island\u201d for, among other things, the many outdoor sculptures dotting its landscape and art projects that involve renovating abandoned houses. Now, a new commissioned work has been unveiled in the island\u2019s Honmura district. \u201cRing of Fire \u2013 Solar Yang & Lunar Weerasethakul\u201d is a site-specific artwork created by artists Haegue Yang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul as the result of their first collaboration, and is set in the more than 100-year-old main house of the Matabe estate in Honmura. The bipartite work saw Yang create the daytime elements while Weerasethakul worked on the nighttime part, and although the two are separate pieces, they weave together a single experience.<\/p>\n
Across several rounds of discussions about their ideas for the Naoshima work, the two artists zeroed in on the Ring of Fire, the volcanic belt that encircles the Pacific Ocean. This horseshoe-shaped tectonic structure stretches for about 40,000 kilometers from South America to New Zealand via Central and North America, the Japanese archipelago, and the Philippines. Some 75 percent of the world\u2019s active volcanoes are on the belt, where around 90 percent of the Earth\u2019s earthquakes also occur. This ceaseless tectonic activity has brought about a highly varied natural environment and significant biodiversity. The two artists interpreted the intense energy of volcanoes as a vital impulse of the earth and attempted to connect it with the island house using their respective approaches.<\/p>\n
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I first visited Matabe at night. After crossing the stepping stones in the moss garden and entering the building, I came across Yang\u2019s sculptures in a dimly lit room, and waited for \u201cLunar Weerasethakul\u201d to appear in the same space.<\/p>\n
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Installation view:\u00a0Ring of Fire – Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul <\/i>(Night)\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo\u3000<\/b><\/p>\n
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Installation view:\u00a0Ring of Fire – Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul <\/i>(Night)\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo\u3000<\/b><\/p>\n
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul works across the fields of art and film and has in recent years released a succession of experimental works that expand the concept of cinema. This time, on Naoshima, he takes on the memories of our planet. He has converted an archive of tectonic movements throughout the Pacific Ring of Fire over the past 124 years into forms including pulsating sounds, vibrations, and waveform images, conjuring up a mystical mansion more intimate than a theatrical spectacle. Fragmentary images of islands and volcanoes are projected onto the tokonoma alcove, transoms, tatami mats, and shoji panels of the traditional Japanese house, appearing and disappearing all around the viewer. The actors Sakda and Jenjira, familiar from Weerasethakul\u2019s other works, also make appearances. A waveform akin to an electrocardiogram of Earth itself crosses the space, and a painting of an erupting volcano by the Indonesian artist Raden Saleh, painted 160 years ago, floats like a phantom. Whose dream is this? Having the past and the present, dreams and reality, melt into one without boundaries is signature Weerasethakul. Incidentally, according to the people of Naoshima, a littlel snake visits Matabe at night. The artist was fond of this tidbit, which could as well have been something straight out of film \u201cUgetsu.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Installation view:\u00a0Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul<\/em> (Day)\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo\u3000<\/b>Haegue Yang, Mesmerizing Votive Pagoda Lantern \u2013 Snow Volcano Ultramundane Flowers<\/em>,\u00a0<\/i>2024<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Installation view:\u00a0Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul<\/em> (Day)\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo\u3000<\/b>Haegue Yang,\u00a0Sonic Erruption Upside Down \u2013 Slender,\u00a0<\/i>2024<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With sunrise the next morning, it was time for \u201cSolar Yang.\u201d The objects I had spotted in the darkness last night turned out to be three sculptures: the one a paper lantern inspired by the traditional Sanuki lanterns of Kagawa, and the others made up of countless red and silver bells. The north-to-south moss garden is dotted with small sculptures of volcanoes, and the sliding doors of the rooms are left open to invite the wind in. Also on full display are the features of the house itself, reflecting Honmura\u2019s time-honored wisdom of living in harmony with nature and carefully preserved by the architect Hiroshi Sambuichi when he renovated Matabe in 2016.<\/p>\n Drawing references from a wide variety of cultures as well as the natural sciences, Haegue Yang is noted for her unique visual language, which is both hybrid and transcultural. Here, in contrast to Weerasethakul\u2019s focus on the past, she sought to capture geological movement in the present. When the seismograph in the artwork detects a tremor, the data is converted in real time, causing the sculptures to instantly emit light, rotate, and vibrate. Representing a sophisticated fusion of handicraft and technology, they reminded me more of magical tools than earthquake early-warning devices. During the 20 minutes I spent in the room, three times I saw the lantern lit up in red and rotate slowly while the bells all rang in unison for several tens of seconds. I braced myself for their alarm-like, high-pitched sound, and imagined some place that was shaking at that very moment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Installation view:\u00a0Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul<\/em> (Day)\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo\u3000<\/b>Haegue Yang,\u00a0Sonic Erruption Upside Down \u2013 Slender,\u00a0<\/i>2024<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yang\u2019s sculptures emit a strong physical presence, while Weerasethakul\u2019s phenomena appear like ghosts, leaving no trace of their existence. Day and night, past and present; the work comprises many polarities and is both two pieces and one. While using earthquake data that hits particularly close to home here in Japan, a country prone to natural disasters, it invites the viewer on a conceptual journey through mythology, history, geology, and inner worlds. As travelers of day and night, invited to a distant island across the sea, the artists explore sincerely the essence between themselves and the place they visit, ultimately returning to their fundamental existence within a great connection. On Naoshima, where we are close to nature, we may ponder breaking free of the confines of a human-centric world and rediscovering a rich life in harmony with nature. Perhaps this experience of connection is the reason why there is art on Naoshima\u2014and the reason we visit the island.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translated by Ilmari Saarinen<\/small><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Installation view:\u00a0Ring of Fire – Solar Yang, Lunar Weerasethakul (Night), 2024\u3000Photo: Takumi Kondo &nbs […]","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[73],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8686"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8729,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686\/revisions\/8729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/_sys2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/8-3-683x1024.jpg\")
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