The Salt Labyrinths of Motoi Yamamoto

Japanese installation artist, Motoi Yamamoto, creates sculptures and installations out of salt.

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He spend 50 hours or more crouched on the floor as he draws out his intricate and delicate mazes.

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He uses hundreds of pounds of refined salt piped out of a plastic squeeze bottle to construct what he appropriately calls his Labyrinths.

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Hi-Fructose interviews Yamamoto:

"Salt seems to possess a close relation with human life beyond time and space. Moreover, especially in Japan, it is indispensable in the death culture. After my sister's death, what I began to do in order to accept this reality was examine how death was dealt with in the present social realm. I posed several related themes for myself such as brain death or terminal medical care and picked related materials accordingly. I then came to choose salt as a material for my work. This was when I started to focus on death customs in Japan."

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"Drawing a labyrinth with salt is like following a trace of my memory. Memories seem to change and vanish as time goes by. However, what I sought for was the way in which I could touch a precious moment in my memories, which cannot be attained through pictures or writings. What I look for at the end of the act of drawing could be a feeling of touching a precious memory. During the course of drawing, I cannot tell it if will reach the essential point till its very end because lines are curved or cut against my intention. It depends not only on my psychological or physical condition, but also on the condition of the floor or the level of humidity. I always silently follow the trace, that is controlled as well as uncontrolled from the start point after I have completed it."

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His latest installation is in Marseilles and is a bit of a departure from his typical linear labyrinth pattern and resembles something more like lace.

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"In the beginning, I was interested in the fact that salt is used in funerals or in its subtle transparency. But gradually I came to a point where the salt in my work might have been a part of some creature and supported their lives. Now I believe that salt enfolds the memory of lives. I have thus had a special feeling since I started using it as a material."

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Motoi Yamamoto uses salt as a life-giving substance, so at the end of the installation's show, visitors are asked to collect the salt from the floor and then everyone travels to the ocean or a river to return it to the ocean so it can continue its path.

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