My English Garden
Rice papers, bedframes, bird feeders, tatami mats, heri, ohajiki, bamboo, TV monitor, ink, and book cover (Powers of Horror by Julia Kristeva)
Variable dimensions
2022

My English Garden
Garden waste bag, rice papers, bird feeder, bamboo, and ink
Variable dimensions
2022

Hina Mae

The idea for my latest installation series, ‘My English Garden’, developed with my writing experience of i-Novels (shi-shōsetsu; 私小説) in English. I started to write the drafts of the confessional novels in Japanese first, and later produced them into English. These are the translated novels without the thoroughly completed versions in the original language. My narrative is constructed differently in-between two languages, within the visceral surge of how gradually one part of me fades away.

The camera voyeurism and the persistent cyber gang-stalking are the second layers of the work. The mounds of the shredded papers were made in two entirely different processes; one is carefully handwritten, and the other is made of randomly spilt ink. It questions to what extent it would be possible for others to distinguish the initial subtleties and ambiguity of the author’s words. The stretched papers in all directions also indicate the flow of distribution through one’s voice can be easily turned into something identical and disposable by unscrupulous powers.