Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores Mori Mariko’s works in Okinawa within the context of artistic creations by other Japanese artists that have casted an exotic view over Okinawa and have interpreted these islands, their landscape and culture, as the repository of a premodern and timeless Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Artist Mori Mariko’s career, since the late 1990s, has been characterized by her aim to create works of art that revitalize the connection between mankind and nature. According to the artist, in remote times, a direct and harmonious relation with nature existed, but in contemporary times this connection has been lost. Searching throughout diverse cultural and spiritual traditions of the past, Mori looks for inspiration to create artworks that, although based in the use of technology, aim to offer a model or a path to recover that long-lost harmonious relation with our natural surroundings.

Since the early 2000s the artist has spent time in Okinawa and the landscape and nature of this prefecture has become a source of inspiration for some of her works. Mori was not only moved by the beauty of these islands, but also by the rituals carried out by Okinawan shaman-priestesses or noro, rituals that, according to the artist, had been passed on throughout times without change, and through which nature is honored. In the year 2011 she revealed her site-specific project Primal Rhythm, in Miyakojima (Okinawa Prefecture), created through her Faou Foundation. This installation takes advantage of the geographical setting and the light of the winter solstice and, as explained by the artist, aims “to unite the celestial and the terrestrial, as a lasting testimony to pay the respect to the natural beauty of our surroundings on earth”.

With her work in Okinawa, Mori joins the list of Japanese artists that have discovered in the beauty of these islands an inspiration for their work. This landscape, which is often described as pristine or uncontaminated, has been seen as a repository of a remote past that has managed to survive unaltered. This presentation aims to situate the works created by Mori in Okinawa within the context of those artists who, coming from other parts of Japan, have casted an exotic view over Okinawa and have interpreted these islands, their nature, culture and traditions, as the repository of a premodern and timeless Japan.