Chiharu Shiota’s New Monumental Work

In her latest work at the historic Le Bon Marché department store in Paris, Chiharu Shiota provides the visitors with an immersive experience, poetically inviting them to “sail towards a fresh start.”

Known for her monumental art installations, Shiota has suspended 150 sculptural boats from the store’s central glass roof, using nearly 300,000 yards of yarn. A part of the ‘Where are we going?’ exhibition, it also includes the work ‘Memory of the Ocean’, a multi-sensory mesh wave evoking the impression of walking under the big water. Asking rhetorically: ‘Where are we going?’, the artist refers to the mysterious destinations that shape our lives. She says: “The creation of this indecipherable mesh and its plasticity are a mystery, just like our brain, the universe, and of course, life. I have no answers, only questions. These questions are the foundations of my work.” The exhibition will be displayed at Le Bon Marché until February 18, 2017.