Installation view of ‘An Exploration of Perforated Space in Four Segments Words’ 2010
NaoKo TakaHashi – An Exploration of Perforated Space in Four Segments of Words
5th February – 4th April 2010
An Exploration of Perforated Space in Four Segments Words was a site-specific commission by artist NaoKo TakaHashi.
TakaHashi has been exploring issues of language and social space in her work for the last nine years in an investigation of differences and similarities in between her native Japanese and those of countries she is visiting including Israel, Palestine, the United Arab Emirates, and across Europe.
‘An Exploration of Perforated Space in Four Segments of Words’ presented a fictional corrugated cardboard park within which visitors heard autobiographical stories performed by TakaHashi, with music by Terence Kirkbride, former drummer with Oasis. Written through her experiences as a culturally displaced artist engaging with her surroundings we hear about abuse from teenagers and children, shopping at corner shops, bike theft, navigating London’s transport system, bullying, misunderstanding and paranoia. Her stories of the everyday are both heartfelt and uncomfortable and bring a deeply personal aesthetic to the narrative of interacting with people and social spaces.
The exhibition followed on from her text pieces that have become a familiar, if incongruous, sight around East London, their letters woven through scaffolding and railings, and her book ‘Not So Too Much of Much of Everything’ published by Book Works in 2007. In addition to the exhibition IMT hosted an artist’s talk.
NaoKo TakaHashi – An Exploration of Perforated Space in Four Segments of Words was supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Japan Foundation.
NaoKo TakaHashi, born in Nigata, Japan, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL graduating with an MFA in 2002. She has since exhibited widely in the UK, Europe and the Middle East including the Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde, Denmark, Five Years Gallery and Campbell Works, London, the Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem and has participated in Volatile Dispersal: Festival of Art Writing, Whitechapel Gallery, London and the 3rd AiM International Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco. TakaHashi is currently collaborating with Terence Kirkbride on a new lo-fi urban folk project ‘The Marbles Jackson’. She lives and works in London.
