Chiharu Shiota´s Absent Bodies: An Analysis

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Chiharu Shiota is a Japanese installation artist who is widely known for captivating viewers with her immense thread installations. Through the combination of complex networks of string and used possessions that carry with them personal stories, Shiota is able to explore the connection that exists between objects and memory, as well as the past and the present. So, by taking a moment to carefully analyze Shiota’s work and its intricacies, the meaning of it all can easily be deciphered. As with all of Chiharu Shiota’s thread installations, her 2016 installation titled Absent Bodies is site-specific and immersive. When viewed, your eyes will work its way through the labyrinthine layers of red yarn – which represent human relationships – that have clouded the end of a room, to ultimately make their way to the presence of two chairs that have been placed at the very end of the tunnel. However, while the chairs remain empty, they still evoke the presence of a human being due to the traces that have been left behind and indicate an existence. Here, the traces of existence are the two chairs because – as with all objects used by Shiota – they are not new and carry memories with them from the previous owner. This shows the art goal of the artist because Shiota specifically utilizes used chairs to demonstrate the connection …show more content…

Not only does this allow for a better view of the chairs but, when looking through the tunnel, it also leaves viewers feeling as though they are looking into the past. It is like having the ability to look back at a memory but not being able to physically go back to it. This shows another art goal of Shiota’s, which is the exploration of the connection between the past and present. In Absent Bodies, we are invited to look at a memory – the chairs – while still being stuck in the present, unable to physically reach that memory and return to

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