installAtion

Petal mori / March 11 - April 18. 2021 @ Praise Shadows Art Gallery

The site-specific installation is created by Yuri Shimojo in collaboration with Maria Takeuchi (projection) and Alec Fellman (sound). On the floor in the center of the gallery will be a mound of white cleansing salt with 108 glass petri dishes set upon it. “108” is a sacred number in the Dharmic religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainsim; in Japan, at the end of each year, Buddhist temples chime their bells 108 times to close out the old year and welcome in the new one. Each petri dish encloses an individual Sakura petal made of torn washi paper, then tied closed, as if in tribute, with fine silk thread. Another Sakura petal, suspended from the ceiling by a single silk white thread, hovers just above the salt mound, all graced in luminous projection. The accompanying sound, Petal Mori, a 108 minute looping soundscape, contains a bell ringing once per minute, simultaneously illuminating one of the 108 petri-dishes.

Memento Mori : Yuri Shimojo

On March 11, 2021, the tenth anniversary of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, Praise Shadows Art Gallery will present the U.S. premiere of Memento Mori, Yuri Shimojo’s monumental painting series dedicated to the memory of the lives lost in the natural and nuclear disaster. Previously shown only in Kyoto (2013) and Tokyo (2014), this body of work is considered Shimojo’s most significant to date. In addition to the paintings, the artist will present a new mixed-media installation dedicated to the victims of Tōhoku, as well as the millions of people who have lost their lives to Covid-19.

Memento Mori.
Remember your mortality.

Petal Mori is a meditation on dualities; Life and Death, Individual and Collective, Dream and Reality.

108 Petri Dishes contain 1, 2, or 3 washi paper sakura petals

108 Strikes of a bell bring a focus to each dish before dissolving into collective patterns

The Sound is conceived as a kind of universal myth story sound collage. Vague impressions of sound from childhood, internal sounds, personal yet universal, subliminal, without start or ending, non-human sounds.

The Light composition was inferred by the luminosity of the materials to give life to each dish. The colors and movement derive from the artist’s imagination of the Sanzu River, as told through a personal story by Yuri Shimojo.

Within Petal Mori, prime numbers appear and disappear, scattered throughout.

more information about Yuri Shimojo’s Memento Mori here