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Mika Ninagawa with EiM

Mika Ninagawa with EiM

NINAGAWA Mika with EiM, Dreams of the beyond in the Abyss, 2024
Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama
Photo by Mika Ninagawa

Dreams of the Beyond in the Abyss

Dreams of the Beyond in the Abyss is an experience-oriented work of art staged in Makido Cave, a limestone cave in Okayama Prefecture. The installation unfolds after the viewers cross the border with reality and enter the otherworldly space of the cave. It awakens all sorts of emotional experience deep in the psyche of the viewers.

On their visit to Makido Cave, the haiku poetry couple Tekkan and Akiko Yosano remarked on its “a bizarre sight; like a road to the underworld.” To set foot in this cave praised for its magical beauty is also an act of dialogue with the perpetual flow of time born of nature, accompanied by a sense of awe and reverence. The chain of singular sights could be likened to a tour of Yomi, the Japanese Hades. This is a theme that has been transmitted from ancient times, not only in the myth of Izanagi in Japan but also the mythology of many other peoples including the Greeks, Mesopotamians, Celts, and Mayans. As a stage setting for transcending time, the cave generates encounters linked to the stories told from the ancient past.

Upon entering the cave, the visitors are led to a space bathed in blue light, which will undoubtedly give them a feeling akin to purification. Because this blue-lit space is positioned near the cave’s mouth, it also provides the final vision after viewers have walked down the narrow and winding path through the cave. Appearing again after the sensation of making one’s way through a psychological maze, the blue light emphasizes the process of internal rebirth.

The viewers in the recess of the cave are enveloped in a red space accented with cluster amaryllises (red spider lilies). The silence of the mystical space in the deepest part of the cave resonates with the red flowers, producing a highly spiritual atmosphere. In the viewers, it calls forth a mix of feelings associated with the dichotomies of allurement and anxiety, life and death, tension and release, ephemerality and universality, resignation and hope, and beginning and end. Therein awaits an experience that could be termed “dreams of the beyond.” Once the visitors who have journeyed through the abyss emerge from the cave, how will the visions they saw there and what they sensed there exert an influence on their reality? The series of experiences reminiscent of a tour of the underworld evokes diverse emotions and inner reactions in the viewers. We fervently hope that their effect will not be confined to a mere admiration of sensory beauty, but also bring the viewers into touch with their existence and outlook on life and death, in a way that they will never forget.

Mika Ninagawa is a photographer and film director. Her activities center on photography, but she has also put her hand to many films, videos, and spatial installations. In addition, she is active as a member of the creative team EiM. She has received the Ihei Kimura Photo Award and numerous other awards. A collection of her photographs was published by Rizzoli N.Y. in 2010.
Ninagawa has directed five full-length movies including Helter Skelter (2012), and FOLLOWERS, an original Netflix drama. Her latest photo collection is titled Flowers, Shimmering Light. Her main solo exhibitions include MIKA NINAGAWA (MOCA Taipei, 2016), Mika Ninagawa Into Fiction / Reality (which toured various museums in Japan over the years 2018-21, and Mika Ninagawa Exhibition: Eternity in a Moment (Tokyo Node, 2023-24), which attracted about 250,000 visitors.

EiM[Eternity in a Moment]
The creative team is organized by photographer and film director Mika Ninagawa, data scientist Hiroaki Miyato, set designer Enzo, creative director Isao Kuwana, and others. The group takes action while putting together a diverse team for each project. Its main exhibitions include Embracing Lights (Appi Art Project, 2022), Mika Ninagawa: Eternity in a Moment (Tomio Koyama Gallery Maebashi, 2023), Mika Ninagawa; Eternity in a Moment (TOKYO NODE, 2023-24), and NINAGAWA Mika with EiM: Where Humanity Meets Nature (Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024).

Mika Ninagawa/蜷川実花 with EiM

2024.9.2811.24
18DAYS UNTIL CLOSING