Onryō

Kimono, 3×2.20m, collaborative installation with Tarfa Bachan, pattern paper, 2022

Impressions

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The installation is a concept by Leniko Sennoma, executed by the costume designer of the feature film EYES WITHOUT GAZE (Tarfa Bachan).

In the collaborate feature film the protagonist (Maria) is on the search for truth. Her character puts the dialectical relationship between good ‘against’ evil into question. She is portrayed in the film as a dualistic entity that encompasses both good and evil within herself. She is not a hero who ‘defeats’ evil, but rather a dualistic manifestation that must restore balance. Inspiration for this was drawn from the mythos of Japanese Onryō (cf. Japanese Horror Films and their American Remakes by Valerie Wee, 2013). Onryō are vengeful spirits of murdered women who cannot leave the world of the living nor enter the world of the dead. It is their task to restore the balance of the world, which was disturbed by their murders. Like a natural catastrophe, their arrival brings destruction, which, signifies an intention-free reaction to a previous event.

 

The larger than life installation of ONRYŌ is hanging above the spectator, with it’s half transparent paper it submits a haptic feeling of softness yet eeriness.

past and upcoming exhibitions

  • Gallery Sa-Kura, Nagoya Japan, 2022
  • Galerie Kulterim, Berlin Germany, 2022