2013 The Pupa Stage 1311

The Pupa Stage　1311　　　　2013

photo: OHTANI Ichiro

fabric, bamboo, lens, wire, etc.
L.1250cm, W.512cm, H.259~442 cm, dimension variable
Itabashi Art Museum / Tokyo
[Contemporary Art Festival in Itabashi Art Museum: Gap Dynamics]

One spring day, I found swallowtail eggs on the leaves of a Japanese pepper tree and began to observe them. The ecology of the swallowtails that emerged was full of surprises and mysteries. Among the varied stages of their metamorphosis, the most mysterious was the pupa stage just before they became butterflies. Completely different in its behaviors up until that stage, the form of a pupa that resembles a pharaoh's coffin was lifelessly inactive. In order for a pupa to be reborn into a body with a completely different purpose, the cells of its inner body must simultaneously undergo death and creation; that is, a pupa undergoes a drastic transition by reducing its larval body to pulp. I superimposed mankind's present state that is striving to change in the post 3/11(date of Japanese catastrophe in 2011) world with the small form of life that regenerates itself by overcoming the near-death pupa stage.