Hiraki Sawa: Journeys in Place

Above and previous page: Hiraki Sawa. trail, detail, 2005. Single-channel video with animation and sound. Duration: 14 minutes. Asia Society, New York: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harold and Ruth Newman, 2011.18
Japanese born and London based Hiraki Sawa creates video works that explore psychological landscapes, unexpected worlds, and the playful interweaving of domestic and imaginary spaces. His works traverse specific, often personal, landscapes to consider memory, migration, and displacement. Asia Society invited Sawa to frame his video trail (2005), held in the museum's collection, with a selection of works from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection. His selection of a small-scale pair of lion-dogs (flanking the video monitor) and bixies (mythical creatures) relate to the miniaturized camel who is the main protagonist of trail. The Asia Society’s beloved elephant-headed sandstone Ganesha completes the display of legendary animals, bringing joy, good luck, and wealth to the many who venerate the popular deity.
Sawa's trail is looped with his works fantasmagoria (2017) and pilgrim (2022). All three videos present abstracted montages of spaces that are intimate to the artist. Trail takes place within an enclosed domestic space; fantasmagoria was created at ordinary sites in Noto, Japan, and pilgrim was filmed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, the former residence of Prince Asaka-no-miya.
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