Nature offers a variety of structural configurations that, throughout the decades, also influenced the work of many architects, mathematicians, biologists and physicists. These natural structures are characterised by a wide range of diversity and differentiation. For quite a few years now Japanese artist Aki Inomata has been experimenting with the possibility of generating forms that respond to natural needs with some human intervention thrown in.
Born in 1983 in Tokyo where she was awarded in 2008 an MFA in Inter Media Art from the University of the Arts and where she still lives and works, Inomata focuses on projects that combine issues such as adaptation, change and use of natural resources, with new architectural criteria for the discovery of innovative spatial possibilities.
In her project "Girl, Girl, Girl..." (2012) she cut into bits and pieces a series of womenswear garments and then gave them to female bagworms that built fashionable protective cases with them. In this way she created a parallel story between women wearing nice clothes and make up and bagworms styling their own protective cases.
After the Great Eastern Japan earthquake, inspired by the ancient Hindu notion of the world supported on the back of a giant elephant itself standing on a large turtle, she designed a 3D printed miniature version of a village in Gunma Prefecture that prospered by raising silkworms since the Meiji Period. The village can be applied on the back of a turtle like a prosthetic shield-like structure.
For another ongoing project she moved from issues of identity, nationality, migration and transformation: after hearing that the land of the former French Embassy in Japan that had been French until 2009 was to become Japanese for the following fifty years, and then be returned to France once again, inspired by the story of hermit crabs changing gastropod shell after shell until they find one of suitable size, she designed a series of 3D printed shells imitating the architecture of various cities and famous capitals.
"I'm interested in architecture," Inomata told Irenebrination. "But my works show the unexpected appearance of creatures around us also from a humorous point of view. Through these works I attempted to compare the rules in our society or our culture - such as languages, borders or clothes - to those of other creatures. I guess it would be useful for us to look at our society and at ourselves from a different angle. I started to 'cooperate with creatures,' because nowadays, even in our highly advanced culture and civilization, the system or rules in society is still too complicated to understand how it works and for most of us it remains a mysterious black box that causes suffocation, or even hopelessness."
Technology-wise Inomata used a CT scan to capture highly-detailed images of the natural shell, and then designed the city herself, coming up habitable prototypes of mini shell-cities that still fit the hermit crab's exoskeleton. "I started using 3D printing in 2009," she explains, "it is an amazing technique since it allows me to make the shell form, even though I can't curve the inner spiral of the shell and that's tricky."
The images of migrating hermit crabs inhabiting her see-through shells decorated with the skyline of cities from countries as different and diverse as the USA, The Netherlands, France and Morocco, hint at the possibilities of quickly crossing various national borders and therefore changing identity, appearance and location.
Inomata recreated roughly thirty different skylines: "I like all of them," she states, "but I especially like the Manhattan skyline since it is probably one of the most famous and recognisable by people all over the world, so I couldn't really exclude it from this series. The shell I designed with the Manhattan skyline suggests the viewer that my work is not fantasy, but belongs to the real world."
Aki Inomata's work has been showcased in galleries in Tokyo, Osaka and Shanghai, and she's currently part of the "Life to Life" Ogaki Biennale 2013 (until 6th September), "I have never had an exhibition in Europe, so I'd like to hold one soon!" she concludes.
All images and videos in this post courtesy of Aki Inomata.
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