By public demand… Contemporary art installation reopens following record first year - 23 May 2008
Issued By: York Museums Trust
Issue Date: 23 May 2008
News Release
The Memory of Place, Keiko Mukaide – May 24 - October 2008
International artist Keiko Mukaide’s thought provoking The Memory of Place will open for a second year after more than 35,000 people visited it in 2007.
The peaceful and spiritual art installation at York St Mary’s was well received by critics and the public in its first year, with record numbers visiting the contemporary art venue. Many people contacted York Museums Trust, who run the site, about it reappearing for a second year.
The piece sees Keiko respond to the sense of the space and to the visual remains of the building’s former life, the stained glass, grave covers and carvings.
Now in its fifth year, the success also shows the strong following the venue has built in the city and beyond.
Keiko said: “It was very successful last year we were very pleased how many people came to see it. I think it is a place to contemplate and some people were moved by the experience.”
“The main attraction for me as an artist was the energy in this building from its former life as a church. My installation was a translation of this energy.
“But there was also a great energy from the amount of people who came to visit it and these have combined and created something much more dramatic.
“I felt that because of this the art has become independent from me, this is part of the reason it worked so well.”
A total of 36,498 people visited the free installation while it was open (May to October) last year, up 44 per cent on the previous year. This was a record amount of visitors for St Mary’s since it has been as an arts venue.
Mukaide’s work uses fire, water, glass, stone and light to brilliantly complement the unique historic church. Specifically the nave of the church is filled with pool of water which gently flows towards the transept of the church, where a suspended column of glass rods is top-lit. This suggests a spiritual path to a higher place.
Visitors are invited to become involved with the installation by lighting a votive candle and floating it on the pool - connecting our modern life with that of our ancestors.
Keiko said this was inspired by a religious ceremony in Japan called Shoro nagashi. This is where people release lanterns onto a river in mid summer, symbolizing their ancestors’ spirits ascending to heaven.
Keiko felt that the ancient Eastern ceremony is relevant today in Western society because of the timeless bond between ourselves and those who went before us.
New for this year is a Wish Tree. This iron structure inside the church has been included by Keiko to allow people to write a memory, message or wish and attach it to the branches of the tree. In November, when the installation closes, the tree will be taken outside and set fire to, to symbolise the thoughts and memories being released.
Biography of Keiko Mukaide
Keiko Mukaide was born in 1954 in Tokyo, Japan, and studied at Musashino Art University, Tokyo, and the Royal College of Art, London. She established a studio in Scotland in 1993 and is now a research fellow at Edinburgh College of Art and is based in Fife.
She was short-listed for the 1998 Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts: Glass and has exhibited internationally, with work in some of the world's most prestigious glass collections.
Her work has evolved from single pieces for galleries, to large site-specific installations responding to physical and spiritual environments.
Mukaide uses glass in many forms to create a link between viewer, artist and the natural world.
Recently she has created site-specific installations for Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (Elemental Traces, 2000), the Hill House in Helensburgh (Miegakari - Between Seen and Unseen, 2001), Talbot Rice Gallery (Spirit of Place, 2003) and Tate St Ives (Light of the North, 2006).
ENDS
Notes
For interviews with Keiko please contact Lee Clark, media coordinator, through the contact details listed below.
Photos of the installation are available on request. Please credit them to Shannon Tofts.
Further information
For images, further information or to arrange interviews, please telephone Lee Clark, Media Co-ordinator, York Museums Trust, on 01904 687673 or email lee.clark@ymt.org.uk