stone will flow, leaves will sink

Kyoco Taniyama
stone will flow, leaves will sink

Exhibition Catalogue
18th January – 10th February, 2019

Künstlerhaus Bethanien

"During one year residency in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, my interest lies on how politics and societies deal with negative aspects and events in the present and history as well as the tendency not accounting for the past, but rather wanting to conceal it. In the spring, summer, and autumn, I walked along the entire route of the former Berlin Wall through the center of Berlin and photographed fallow land, old facilities, as well as recent remains such as garbage. In the exhibition, I accordingly present a B&W photo series “Missing Memories“, which is equipped with artistic commentary in the form of cutouts. I form discarded objects that I collect – cans, rusty metal, empty bottles – to abstract sculptures “Concealment“, which I documents photographically and by video before pouring plaster on them, creating harmoniously shaped artistic metaphors of concealment. With the video footage of the garbage sculptures, which are shown as a projection together with the plaster sculptures, I simultaneously reveal the origin and process of this concealment. I present the works of my installation as an experimental tour, giving the viewer the opportunity to constantly gain a new perspective on things. On certain moments during the exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien I offered visitors the opportunity to smell the scent of an incense obtained from the precious resin of agar-wood “Jin-koh”, which sinks in the water – a property alluded to by the title of the exhibition, “stone will flow, leaves will sink”."
– Kyoco Taniyama