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Crowded Series
That which is seen between the visible and the invisible.
The Crowded series, presented across four exhibitions in 2006, unfolded through Crowded 1/3, Crowded 1/3 high, Crowded 2/3, and Crowded 3/3. Calligraphy on translucent fabric allowed lines to drift and merge with the background, monochrome writing diminished visibility, and light and shadow revealed the fragile thresholds between presence and absence.
This project marked a crucial moment in the artist’s early explorations, broadening into a connected sequence of works that laid the foundation for later international presentations.
Crowded 1/3
Crowded 1/3 high
Crowded 2/3
Crowded 3/3
【Crowded Series — Exhibition Notes】
The Crowded series (2006) represents an inquiry into the essence of calligraphy, seeking to transcend the realm of language.
Freed from meaning, the lines drift along the threshold between the visible and the invisible, revealing both the limits and the possibilities of writing.
The Crowded series (2006) was conceived by stripping characters of semantic value and suspending emotion, thereby focusing exclusively on the act of writing itself. Employing invented Japanese characters devoid of linguistic function, the works project writing into space as pure lines, exposing the embodied gesture and cultural memory inherent in calligraphy. What emerges is the threshold between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence. The lines resist reduction to recognizable forms, confronting the fundamental question of whether writing remains confined to the plane or extends outward into space. The viewer, immersed in their density and accumulation, encounters the moment when writing transcends meaning and manifests in its own right.
This exploration ultimately culminated in the realization that “writing is writing.” To attempt to transcend writing would be to negate the very necessity of writing itself. For the artist, however, these limitations simultaneously disclosed new possibilities. Crowded thus constitutes a series that reexamines the foundations of calligraphy, embodying both contradiction and anticipation, and marking a decisive turning point within her artistic practice.
Crowded 2/3
September 2006
Crowded 2/3
Venue: Ishida Taiseisha (Kyoto, Japan)
— White text on white ground and black text on black ground flanked a central, indistinct human body print of the artist. The floor before it was covered with discarded paper, physically obstructing close approach.
Crowded 2/3 was presented as a three-sided installation.
On the left wall (H 251 cm × W 855 cm), white characters were inscribed with wax onto white fabric; on the right wall (H 251 cm × W 855 cm), black characters were inscribed with wax onto black fabric, leaving behind imperceptible traces of writing. At the center (H 251 cm × W 650 cm), the artist placed a life-sized imprint of her own body, densely filled so that the trace was rendered illegible, almost unrecognizable as human form. In front of this central work, discarded practice sheets were laid out, physically barring the viewer from approaching. A sofa was placed at the center of the space, implicitly suggesting a vantage point, yet from that seat the details of the work could not be seen at all. Thus, the attempt to affirm presence simultaneously generated invisibility and separation, compelling the viewer to confront a “distance that cannot be crossed.”
Artist’s words
“I sought to affirm presence while rendering it invisible, creating a distance that could not be approached.
Perhaps this was the very contradiction and conflict inherent in calligraphy.”
This work reflects a core inquiry running throughout the Crowded series: an attempt to reexamine the very foundations of calligraphy, poised on the threshold between the visible and the invisible.
【Venue Photographs】
Central (Body Rubbing): H 251 cm × W 650 cm
Materials: Sumi ink on torinoko paper
Side Pieces (White ground with wax writing / Black ground with wax writing):
H 251 cm × W 855 cm × 2 pieces
Materials: Cotton with wax
Crowded 3/3
October 2006
Crowded 3/3
Venue: Gallery Kanoko (Kyoto, Japan)
— In a traditional tatami room, the work posed the question: Is it the presence that shapes the line, or the absence?—articulated through the interplay of light and shadow.
Crowded 3/3 was conceived within the setting of a traditional machiya tea room, and realized through the interplay of a hanging scroll and two types of lamps.
The scroll, with both its blank areas and line segments cut away, allows the background to show through, thereby questioning the very constitution of the line itself.
The large lamp, produced with the technique of wax-resist dyeing (rōketsuzome), juxtaposes characters in their original and inverted orientations, generating a geometric pattern that destabilizes the very necessity of the written word.
The smaller lamp, constructed from acrylic and ink, is densely inscribed; when illuminated, its surface projects legible shadow-characters onto the wall. In this reversal, it is not the material object but its cast shadow that emerges as “writing.”
Both the scroll and the large lamp are set at a height of 150 cm, aligned with the scale of the human body.
Together, these three elements—each embodying opposing qualities yet functioning in concert—pose fundamental questions: is calligraphy constituted by line or by blankness, by matter or by shadow, by character or by pattern?
Within the Crowded series, this work brings to culmination the ongoing inquiry into the formation of the line and the very essence of writing, transforming it into a lived spatial experience.
【Venue Photographs】
Hanging Scroll: H 150 cm × W 60 cm
Materials: Sumi ink on washi
Large Lamps: H 150 cm × 24 cm × 24 cm × 2
Materials: Batik-dyed fabric, electric bulbs
Small Lamps: H 20 cm × 12 cm × 12 cm × 2
Materials: Acrylic, electric bulbs
