CHIHARU SHIOTA
ACROSS THE RIVER
STATE GALLERY OF LOWER AUSTRIA, KREMS11 JUNE 2022 – 15 JANUARY 2023
Chiharu Shiota’s ACROSS THE RIVER is a new, site-specific installation that spans an entire room and references the architecture as well as the location surrounding the State Gallery of Lower Austria. In the light-flooded exhibition space on the ground floor of the museum, Shiota created a dense web-like structure made of red yarn, connected to boats that lie on the ground. The boats are traditional Zillen, typical of Krems and the Wachau region as travelling vessels on the Danube river.
The Danube runs through several European countries, crossing national borders and having a unifying effect on the different communities who like in proximity to this massive waterway. Shiota emphasises this intercultural aspect of the river with the inclusion of historical maps of the Danube region woven into her threaded entanglements.
Shiota’s works examine issues central to human existence: memory and time, home and tradition, life and death. Her installations prompt us to consider how we, as humans, are connected to each other through invisible threads, and the possibility for emotions and thoughts to touch one another, linked through inner lines.© Images Christan Redtenbacher
© Chiharu Shiota and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022