Miya Kosowick Mawatari
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Works 2022
Untitled (Poles facing East and West) 2022
Steel railings
Approx. 100cm x 100cm
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Image courtesy of Cookhouse Gallery 2022
Using two railing poles that are characteristic to UK Terraced homes, I manipulated their shapes into arrows. The sculptural installation gains its meaning through its geographical positioning as one points in the direction facing East and the other facing West. Situated in the UK, the two arrows point to my differing places of heritage, Japan and Canada. The placement of the objects is flexible as they could be within or outside of the gallery space, far apart or close together–the only certainty is to point the arrows East and West. Although the project is personal to my identity, the arrows could be universally applicable to migration and globalization. Referring to American anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s ‘scapes’, the arrows could represent global ethnoscapes, the continual flow of people around the world. My decision to use railings that are tied to English architectural design grounds the project to this specific geographical context. Warping and subverting the original object into an arrow questions its original function and symbolic value.
Menu
Works 2022
Untitled (Poles facing East and West) 2022
Steel railings
Approx. 100cm x 100cm
Image courtesy of Cookhouse Gallery 2022Using two railing poles that are characteristic to UK Terraced homes, I manipulated their shapes into arrows. The sculptural installation gains its meaning through its geographical positioning as one points in the direction facing East and the other facing West. Situated in the UK, the two arrows point to my differing places of heritage, Japan and Canada. The placement of the objects is flexible as they could be within or outside of the gallery space, far apart or close together–the only certainty is to point the arrows East and West. Although the project is personal to my identity, the arrows could be universally applicable to migration and globalization. Referring to American anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s ‘scapes’, the arrows could represent global ethnoscapes, the continual flow of people around the world. My decision to use railings that are tied to English architectural design grounds the project to this specific geographical context. Warping and subverting the original object into an arrow questions its original function and symbolic value.