Ger personal: Japanese artist Tomoko Mukaiyama poses inside her multimedia work on display in Yogyakarta. JP/Munarsih Sahana
Rituals run deep in some cultures. For multi-talented Japanese artist Tomoko Mukaiyama, the ritual to welcome a girl’s first menstruation inspired her to create a multimedia artwork to pursue her questions about life and share the stories with others.
Using thousands of white silk dresses, Mukaiyama, formerly a pianist, set up the installation in the form of a gigantic labyrinth called “Wasted”.
In her message placed at the exhibition hall’s reception area, she explains her choice of menstrual blood as “the center” of her installation to symbolize the life cycle.
“I will not give birth again [for some reasons] … Around 20 costumes by Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garcons that I used to wear on stage for my concerts are transformed into my personal bloody dresses. And they are now displayed in a ‘red room’, which is the core part of my installation.”
Visitors to the exhibition are invited to experience an adventure through a universe built on innumerable white silk dresses. At some point, they will come to the “red room” where Mukaiyama’s outfits with red spots of monthly blood hang.
At the center of the installation, a spacious chamber is provided with big pillows wrapped in smooth silky fabrics where people can rest before leaving the labyrinth.
At the end of the installation, each female visitor receives a white silk dress for free – on two conditions: that she wears it during her “time of the month”, and then consciously thinks of a bodily ritual, performs it and put the personal experience into her own art statement.
The art statement can be in words, visuals, videos, sounds, movements or a combination of these, and must be sent back to Mukaiyama. These statements will later be merged into a music piece and presented in a multimedia concert before a live audience at the next exhibition.
Mukaiyama says every exhibition of “Wasted” opens with a multimedia concert based on J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”, along with art statements she receives from participants from all over the world.
In her multimedia concert in Yogyakarta, conducted at the French Cultural Center prior to the ongoing exhibition, she presented the art statements she received from her previous exhibition in Ichigo, Japan, last year.
In the Japan concert, she presented feedback she received from 50 women in the Netherlands.
“In Japan, people are very polite and shy, while in the Netherlands people are so open that they can say anything,” she says.
For her installation, Mukaiyama says music always comes at the end.
In her next “Wasted” exhibition in the Netherlands, she says the music will be based on the art statements she will receive from the audience from her Indonesian exhibition.
The project is on an 18-month tour of six countries.
After her exhibition in Yogyakarta, the work will be exhibited in Heerlen in the Netherlands (March–April 2010), Prague (May–June 2010), Brussels (September 2010) and Moscow (November–December 2010).
Mukaiyama says she learns a lot about life from the art statements she receives, and wants the project to help her understand more about herself, the world, the things around her and the things she has never seen or touched.
Through her work, she tries to convey a message about love.
“It’s about love. Sometimes it’s so difficult to talk about love,” she says.
“Wasted”
Cemeti Art House
Jl. D.I. Panjaitan, Yogyakarta
Runs from Dec. 16, 2009, to Jan. 16, 2010
