MEDIA: DEPARTURES.COM
ROLE: WRITER, DIRECTOR & HEAD OF PRODUCTION
WORDS BY ELISSA POLLS
THE WORK OF Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto carries more weight than meets the eye.
His large-scale installations created with salt are an expression of loss, acceptance, and preservation. Born in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Yamamoto started using salt in his installations as a way of coping with death — both the passing of his sister in 1994 due to a brain tumor and, years later, the loss of his wife of 25 years due to breast cancer. His work became a catalyst for dealing with grief, as well as a vehicle for acknowledging those no longer with us.
“My creation is like a device that allows me to accept a loss. I came up with this solution after thinking about ways for me to accept the loss of a loved one,” he explains. Yamamoto’s installations are meticulous feats requiring extreme concentration. Each square foot of salt work requires about an hour to complete, which means large-scale projects can take days to complete.
With a finicky medium like salt, Yamamoto’s concentration and level of patience is an art form in itself. The work requires long hours of sitting on the floor, time that Yamamoto uses to focus not only on the art, but on his loved ones.
“How can we not forget and what is the act of making memory useful for our lives and beneficial for our lives?” he asks. “Because if we just let go, we will forget. But why don’t we try to find a way to remember.”
This video, created especially for Departures, provides a glimpse into Yamamoto’s process as he works on his latest installation, “Labyrinth.”