To Spin, to Gather――The Landscape of SPINNING SCAPES
KONDO Ryosuke

The 2024 Artists in Residence (AIR) program, “SPINNING SCAPES” was named using a combination of the words “spin” and “scape,” and refers to something that is rapidly rotating. It also reminds us of the present social landscape that is shifting ever so fast amid continuous disasters and floods of information. As a matter of fact, within the three months of the program alone, several incidents shocked the world, ranging from the results of the US presidential election to the political crisis in South Korea.

Of course, the title is not a theme that defines the activities of its participants, but merely a guidepost. Still, the exhibition made me feel as if I were witnessing some sort of “landscape.” And it was certainly different from the spectacular, cropped images of tourist sites or disaster-hit areas.

Indeed, the original meaning of the word “spin” is to draw out and twist fiber into yarn or thread. The verb form of “spin” (as in “to revolve”) is derived from the motion of a spindle braiding yarn.[1] Considering that the task was probably done manually back then, the process must have been slow. On the other hand, while the origin of “scape” is “landscape,” its etymology is traced back to the Dutch word “landschap.”[2] Landschap did not initially refer to “landscape painting,” but to a group of actual lands. “Schap” is the equivalent of the Middle English word “ship,” meaning “a collective of individuals” or “status and unity of a group.”[3]

If we think of “spin” and “scape” as suggesting “braid” and “gather” then SPINNING SCAPES could be defined as a set of gradually braided things. It signifies the landscape before it was composed or recognized as a picture.[4] That said, what exactly did the artists spin?

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For Maggie CHU and ASANO Yuriko, it is the behavior of birds. Chu’s big bird nest, which is made of multiple pieces of intricately folded paper and cloth, floats in the gallery space as if tangled in a long branch. Given her background as an architect, it may seem natural for the artist to have an interest in habitats. Still, the fact that she finds inspiration from the Cuculidae migratory birds that fly to Japan is not entirely unrelated to the current situation in Hong Kong where migration is a familiar issue for its residents.

The characteristics of bird nests are completely different from those of a human dwelling. As a makeshift accommodation for the purpose of reproduction and rearing, nests are destined to be abandoned, eventually deteriorating naturally once the young are grown. However, the cuckoo family does not even try to make a nest as they are brood parasites that lay eggs in the nests of others and rely on the host to raise their young. The birds’ lack of concern when it comes to habitat or kinship makes us reflect on what it means to be with others and in society, especially in our increasingly individualized world.

While Chu questioned human society from the perspective of migratory birds, Asano took a microscopic view to explore the relationship between wild birds and the environment. Her charcoal drawings render various motifs, including birds perched on trees and nuts, whereas the same elements come together in perfect harmony in the enormous vertical painting hanging in the center of the gallery. From a distance, it emanates the elegance of William MORRIS’ wallpaper; yet animals and plants are drawn freely rather than being framed into patterns. Moreover, pellets and feces remind us of birds’ Umwelt.[5] When we look at landscapes, we tend to focus our gaze on the distant object. On the contrary, Asano takes a close look around herself, instinctively watching or touching things that are left in her surroundings in an attempt to recreate on the canvas the dynamic activities nature exhibits day and night.

Of course, humans are also part of these dynamic activities. Béatrice DIDIER spins the act of walking. Historically, many artists—Richard LONG and Hamish FULTON, to name a few—have approached this theme. Whereas her predecessors engaged in the activity alone, searching for Romanticist contemplation while concealing the behavior or sentiment accompanying it, Didier seeks to walk with others, sharing her thoughts with them. The conversations with her companions, and the words and objects they picked up along the way are also made accessible at the gallery in the form of an installation.

What is revealed here is “circulation.” Just like fallen leaves fertilize the land to give birth to a new tree, and the tree bears fruit to feed the bird that lays its eggs and then leaves, humans too are in this cycle of life.[6] Didier notes that she was firmly captured by the interior quality of landscapes in Aomori. Such sensation resonates with the ever-changing quality of the Japanese word for landscape or fukei (風景) which consists of the invisible: “wind” (as in “the flow of air”) and “light” (as in “sunlight and shadow”). This implies that our world operates upon myriad cycles and interdependence.

Dependence and cycles involve not only the present but also the past and future. YAHATA Aki spins memories. Although the word often makes us think of personal photos or movies, visual media records can actually distance viewers from the person concerned. Yahata’s video installation does not rely on sight. Subjects in the positive films that are hanging from the ceiling are small and difficult to comprehend and moving images projected on the wall are rotated 90 degrees to the right or left—conventional landscapes such as the view through a window or in the horizontal format are set aside. Above all, the story of her mother, which inspired Yahata to create the work, are projected onto the visitor’s back—a narrative that only emerges through others.

The artist herself keeps lying down in the video, which suggests that she would rather feel the ocean extending beneath her body than look toward the landscape. Making visitors aware of their back or the surrounding sound, the installation guides the experience of landscape out of the visual sensation and into the collective memories of others.

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Like yarn, the works by the four artists are delicate, with all of them presenting different landscapes to every visitor. In other words, they are landscapes before being embedded as images, and they change in many ways by being woven into the visitor’s imagination. If every one of us spins and gathers, we can create an opportunity to reconsider the landscape as a strong resistance against the “rapidly rotating” landscape.

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[1] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “spin (v.), sense I.1.a,” January 2025.
[2] OED, s.v. “-scape (comb. form),” January 2025.
[3] For example, it can be used as a suffix for the following words: citizen (citizenship), member (membership), partner (partnership). OED, s.v. “-ship (suffix), sense 2,” January 2025.
[4] For a definition of landscape, please refer to John Brinckerhoff JACKSON, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 3-8.
[5] For Umwelt, see Jakob von UEXKÜLL and Georg KRISZAT, Seibutsu kara mita sekai [Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten] trans. HIDAKA Toshitaka and HANEDA Setsuko (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, 2005).
[6] According to dance researcher TOYAMA Kikuko, a walking body is at the state of desubjectification where the subject is being non-volitional/unconscious as it is deemed embedded in the external world from the beginning and exists in mutual reflux through which it continuously flows and responds. Toyama Kikuko, “Hoko ni tsuite: Kyokairei kara no raibu art (Nama no Geijutu) kou” [On walking: reflection on live art from borderline cases], in Kagaku to Geijutu: Shizen to Ningen no Chowa [Science and art: harmony of nature and human], ed. SAKAI Kuniyoshi (Tokyo: Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2022), pp. 127-44.

[Translator: KATO Kumiko (Penguin Translation)]