Th­reads of Me­mo­ry — Chi­ha­ru Shio­ta at the Kunst­hal­le Ros­tock

Wi­th the new in­stal­la­ti­on by in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly re­now­ned ar­tist Chi­ha­ru Shio­ta, the Kunst­hal­le Ros­tock is pre­sen­ting an ex­tra­or­di­na­ry ex­pe­ri­ence in the White Cu­be. Shio­ta, who was born in Osa­ka in 1972 and now li­ves in Ber­lin, is one of the most im­portant in­stal­la­ti­on ar­tists of our time. For the ex­hi­bi­ti­on, she was in­vi­ted in con­nec­tion wi­th the pro­ject “Who am I, thanks to you — mour­ning and fa­re­well (dy­ing)” to crea­te an ex­pan­si­ve work that in­cor­po­ra­tes the di­men­si­ons of the atri­um. Her lar­ge-sca­le in­stal­la­ti­ons are known for for­mu­la­ting an in­ten­se sen­se of pre­sence in ab­sence.

Wi­th a keen sen­se of ma­te­ri­als and space, Shio­ta crea­tes haun­ting net­works of th­reads and ob­jects that trace exis­ten­ti­al ques­ti­ons of iden­ti­ty, me­mo­ry and fa­re­well. Vi­si­tors to the Kunst­hal­le Ros­tock are in­vi­ted to em­bark on a fa­sci­na­ting jour­ney in which the in­vi­si­ble be­co­mes tan­gi­ble and the per­so­nal be­co­mes uni­ver­sal. Shio­ta’s works com­bi­ne poe­tic be­au­ty wi­th a thought-pro­vo­king depth, ma­king the ex­hi­bi­ti­on a high­light of the Kunst­hal­le Ros­tock’s cur­rent pro­gram­me.