HOSOO GALLERY is pleased to announce the beginning of the exhibition Garden and Textile: The Shades of Shadows.

Hosoo Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Garden and Textile: The Shades of Shadows. The show puts on views a multidisciplinary installation consisting of textiles, video, and sound, created in collaboration with Rurihiko Hara, a scholar of Japanese gardens and nohgaku, the architectural design studio Altemy, and the Nishijin-ori textile artisans of Hosoo, with Japanese garden as its theme.

In collaboration with Hara’s Garden Archives Project,^* the tsuboniwa [small indoor garden] at the House of Hosoo textile studio in Nishijin, Kyoto, was recorded in a variety of formats, including a 12-month 3D scan. We spent about three years regularly discussing and experimenting, in an effort to translate the collected data into a textile that would reflect the ever-changing appearance of the garden.

Textiles and gardens have existed in many cultures since ancient times. Both are spatial and physical devices that reconfigure elements of nature. In particular, this exhibition focuses on the significance of kage (shadow) in the context of gardens. Japanese gardens are replete with a wide variety of shadows. The shadows cast by the rocks and plants, standing there bathed in light, are a constant source of delight for the eyes. The surface of the pond, a staple of niwa throughout the ages, creates an intricate, flickering kage, while reflecting the surrounding landscape like a mirror. Even in karesansui [dry gardens], white sand acts as a proxy for water, continually producing complex patterns of shades and shadows. The fact that gardens were traditionally a place to remember the departed seems to attest to their status as a site for kage. None of these kage are static. They are elusive and constantly changing.

This exhibition consists mainly of three works newly created on the theme of kage (shadow). From March 2022 to February 2023, 3D scans were taken of the tsuboniwa (courtyard) of HOUSE of HOSOO every month. Based on the 12 months’ worth of point cloud data obtained from these scans, 4D data was generated. This was then projected to 3D to produce the video installation The Shadows of 4D Garden. The Shades of Shadows is an installation of textiles made using special foil threads designed based on the point cloud data of the tsuboniwa. The Achromatic Garden brings out the pure kage of the fabric’s three-dimensional structure by excluding color. In addition, a sound installation has been produced using the recordings made in the garden, forming a common thread throughout the works. Based on archives collected using many different methods, this exhibition presents a new vision of garden and textile, in which multiple layers of time, stillness and movement intersect.

* The Garden Archives Project is a research initiative focusing on niwa (Japanese gardens), which have developed in diverse ways as an interface between people and the natural environment since ancient times. The Project seeks to propose a new interpretation of Japanese gardens based on their history.