Kakomu 囲む, 2025
Crocheted nylon and wool
39cmL x 23cmW x 50cmH
“Hollowed out,
clay makes a pot.
Where the pot’s not,
is where it’s useful.
Cut doors and windows to make a room.
Where the room isn’t
there’s room for you.”
- The Uses of Not (1997), Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, interpreted by Ursula K. Le Guin
This quote suggests the importance of ‘absence’, or the void. Excavating material can create a void; the same shape can be created by building with an awareness of where the void must be. While the final effect might be the same, the process of creation is different as the latter considers a void as a ‘presence’. How do you create ‘emptiness’? This sculpture questions if the ‘hole’ we see is a void, or simply an enclosure of space. A closed loop passes through this space, playing with the idea of dimension; a change in perspective and an open passage might turn solid. Locked around each other, the intersection of two enclosed ‘voids’ question ideas of space and emptiness.
“Nothing is— Look, and it is.”
- We Do Not Work Alone (1953), Kawai Kanjiro (translated by Ueda Yoshiko)