JPY50,000 (SGD414.94), 2026
Artist’s hair, wire, Japanese bank notes, glass beads
120mm x 10mm x 240mm
Artwork includes a sculpture, a transaction receipt of the currency exchange for the Japanese banknotes, and a printed agreement.
The standard expectation of a ‘box’ might be for it to protect its contents. This artwork holds JPY50,000, which is also the asking price* for the artwork. While the box is made of an unexpectedly fragile material—hair, it maintains a protection over its contents, though not through hardiness or crafty mechanism.
Presenting the owner with a conundrum of keeping the artwork or cutting it open to retrieve the banknotes, the act of destruction often explored in my practice is now handed to them. The price of the artwork suggests that Time, handwork, and hair, which are arguably ‘free’ viewed from the lens of a capitalist society, can form a soft armour.
Within the act of destruction lies sacrifice—not only of the interlaced hair locks, but something of the one carrying out the act. In my belief, deliberate destruction of a precious item (such as life itself, or an encapsulation of Time) is an act that disrupts natural order and demands a bit of your humanity in exchange. This artwork questions what one gives up when they are given the choice to wield their power.
In an unconventional practice, the person acquiring the artwork is made to sign an agreement with unique Terms & Conditions. Should they decide to destroy the artwork, the artist gets partial ownership of the act of destruction (through recording)—which also has no monetary value. Should it remain whole, the acquiring party is obliged to loan it for public exhibitions—where it will be put up for sale again at double the price, with half the profits going to them and the other half to the artist. This bizarre sale pattern directly confronts the flow of money through the art world, inflation of prices, and forces the acquiring party and representing gallery to be engaged with this process in an interactive ‘performance’ with the artist.
*Please refer to the full Agreement for the Terms & Conditions
Created for and first exhibited at HAKO はこ, a group exhibition at Kotomath Hyogomachi, Takamatsu (Japan).