Japanese studio Hidemi Nishida has recently developed an environmental installation called ‘fragile chairs’, a series of wooden chairs placed on lake Poroto in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The piece is an extension of the studio’s fragile series, known for engaging aesthetics of space and perceptions of environment, focusing on a primordial experience and making sense the studio’s choice of location. The are of Hokkaido which serves partly as a museum for tourists is occupied by the indigenous people ‘Ainu’ who consider the lake as a sanctuary.
Nishida‘s work composes what appears to be an ordinary view, using visual elements to draw connections that help us internalise thought onto our own existence. This temporary occupation acts as a metaphor for a field in which humans cannot reach, perhaps alluding to those observed by The Ainu and tourists in the land of Hokkaido. As a result it can be easily felt, the distance between one’s present existence, that which precedes and the one yet to follow.
