Feb 26

Feb 26 Two fantastic new exhibitions woven together at the Hayward Gallery

I do love discovering the work of artists I didn’t previously know, especially when it’s as impactful and memorable as that of the two Asian women artists whose remarkable pieces are on show in a new pair of exhibitions which have just opened at the Hayward Gallery on London’s Southbank and will run there until the beginning of May (you get access to both for the price of one admission ticket).

Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen was born in Beijing, where she has lived ever since, not long before the cultural revolution and the influence of that brutal period in her country’s history has been the catalyst for her lifelong interest in cultural and societal shifts and especially what memories mean to us. But it’s the medium that Yin chooses for the majority of the pieces on display in this exhibition, entitled Heart to Heart, that is so especially eye-catching and frequently playful.

Because almost all of them are constructed from used pieces of clothing. Her material (literally) of choice, undoubtedly influenced by her mother’s work in a clothing factory, is fashioned into fascinating, pieces both large and small, often using transport motifs, like suitcases, cars and even, as part of the first collection of pieces you encounter, which she calls Memories in Transit, an aeroplane.

Memories in Transit - by Yin Xiuzhen in Heart to Heart at the Hayward Gallery

The pieces, each of which is a miniature representation of cities where she has lived, visited and worked, are contained in suitcases arranged on a luggage conveyor belt, also covered in joined together used clothes, in a space designed to look like an airport luggage hall complete with trolleys and airport style seats and signage.

Yin’s cityscape models all made from used clothing. London is bottom left and was specially commissioned for the exhibition and made from items of clothing donated by staff members at the Hayward Gallery.

The second largest piece on display (after the plane) is a representation of the human heart which you can walk into

and the longest, an extended minibus - a model which is known to Chinese people as a ‘little loaf of bread’ - which she created using over four hundred pieces of clothing.

Collective subconscious (Blue) from Yin Yin Xiuzhen’s Heart to Heart at the Hayward Gallery

Inside the body of the van, which Yin describes as ‘like being in a church with satined-glass windows’ are several small stools and chairs

whilst playing on speakers is a song with lyrics which are translated on the adjoining wall, speaking to the difficult and enduring relationship that so many Chinese people have with Beijing.

The chorus reads:

Here I laughed

Here I cried

Here I’ve lived

And here I’ll die

Here I prayed

Here I’ve felt lost

Here I sought

And here I’ve lost

Another piece - Bookshelf No 5 - reflects Yin’s belief that everyone’s experiences are like a volume of books, each chapter being a stage in life. Using garments collected from other people, she has created a library of their personal experiences with each item transforming on the shelf into a book spine.

Other pieces in the exhibition include a wall of images of individual items of her own clothing, many made by her mother, and each representing a particular memory and moment of evolution in her life, sewn into uniform squares which she has then buried in concrete in a traditional Chinese chest made by her father, which is on display beside them. The ‘warmth’ of the clothes encased in the cold of the concrete, which to her represents the building material of a city’s growth, symbolising the burial of individualism that was suppressed in Chinese society.

Upstairs from Heart to Heart is the second of the exhibitions included in the ticket featuring the work of another Asian woman artist, this one from Japan. Threads of Life showcases the remarkable, other-worldly installations of Chiharu Shiota, each of which features woollen threads, often red, sometimes woven together in dense web-like connections, sometimes hanging in cascades, and sometimes with everyday objects hanging from or encased within them.

Like the 30,000 keys that are dangling from the threads in the piece that gives the exhibition its name: Threads of Life. The threads represent human relationships, the red resembles the colour of blood, whilst the keys, she explains, are the mechanism for securing our homes but also opening the door to new opportunities. Doors like the one in the centre of this extraordinary installation.

Black, densely woven threads eerily encase another familiar everyday item in During Sleep. This time its beds, each of which looks as if someone has just got up and left the sheets awry. Indeed, three times during the run of the exhibition (on March 7th, April 11th and May 2nd should you be interested) the beds will actually have occupants sleeping in them from 10am to 1pm. I’m still trying to work out how on earth they get into them.

The third of Chiharu’s large-scale installations in the exhibition is called Letters of Thanks. First created in 2013 as a reflection of her gratitude to her parents, each time the work has been exhibited since - which it has been all over the world in all manner of settings - she invites people to share their own thank-you letters. These (in whichever language is native to the country its being shown in) are then suspended through thousands of long strips of red woollen thread, forming an ethereal tumble of paper and string which visitors can pass through, reading those of the missives which are at eye level.

Some of the letters in Letters of Thanks by Chiharu Shiota at the Hayward Gallery

Other pieces in this exhibition include a strangely moving display of a dress which has been so covered in a mesh of threads that you can no longer see anything other than its shadowy outline

State of Being by by Chiharu Shiota at the Hayward Gallery

And a wall of paintings each done on one day for a year, inspired by the experience related in a novel, of a Japanese writer who moved to Berlin, and each one incorporating a few slim strands of red thread.

Drawings for Toko Tawaada’ The Trainee by Chiharu Shiota at the Hayward Gallery

As foreign as the lives and experiences of Yin and Chiharu are, there is a universality about the themes of connection, memory, family and loss that runs through both Threads of Life and Heart to Heart. The work of both women leaves an imprint on your heart and your head.

Find out opening times and ticket details HERE. Do see and experience their work for yourself if you can between now and May.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what these two remarkable artists look like, that’s Yin on the left and Chiharu on the right.