Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto

Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto creates installations using salt. His installations are temporary, when the exhibition has expired more than 300 people helped to dismantle the exhibition and the salt returned to the sea. Motoi Yamamoto’s design process is as fascinating as the end result. His organic and map-like installations are specially designed for the installation space.

Motoi Yamamoto reasons for using salt:

‘Salt seems to possess a close relation with human life beyond time and space. Moreover, especially in Japan, it is indispensable in the death culture. After my sister’s death, what I began to do in order to accept this reality was examine how death was dealt with in the present social realm. I posed several related themes for myself such as brain death or terminal medical care and picked related materials accordingly. I then came to choose salt as a material for my work. This was when I started to focus on death customs in Japan. In the beginning, I was interested in the fact that salt is used in funerals or in its subtle transparency. But gradually I came to a point where the salt in my work might have been a part of some creature and supported their lives. Now I believe that salt enfolds the ‘memory of lives’. I have thus had a special feeling since I started using it as a material.’

 
images©Makoto Morisawa
via: thekidshouldseethis
 

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