Threads of Life is Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s first major solo exhibition in a London public gallery. The intricate takeover sees the artist weave immersive works from floor-to-ceiling across the Hayward Gallery’s top floor, following recent critically-acclaimed exhibitions in Beijing, Osaka, Tokyo and Paris. Accompanied by new large-scale sculptures, drawings, early performance videos and photographic documentation, Shiota’s signature weblike works respond to the gallery’s iconic brutalist architecture in a truly atmospheric presentation.
Shiota is a leading figure in the international art scene who returns to the Hayward Gallery for the first time since her participation in the group show Walking in My Mind (2009). Best-known for her large-scale installations which engulf ordinary objects - such as shoes, keys, beds, chairs and dresses - within huge tructures of woolen thread, her work explores the body, memory, consciousness and the fragility of existence. Predominantly using red, black or white wool, her evocative pieces make visible the intangible connections we make throughout life. The resulting works are immersive and deeply emotive, often drawn from personal experiences that expand into universal human concerns such as life, death and relationships.
The exhibition features new iterations of Shiota’s past monumental installations, including The Locked Room (2016) and During Sleep (2002). As if painting three dimensionally in a space with string, these delicately woven structures allude to the shared experiences that interconnect us while creating a cocoon-like area that encloses visitors as they walk through it. Additionally, Threads of Life includes documentation of Shiota’s early performances, which probed the boundaries between the body, life and nature, as well as her latest collaboration with writer Yoko Tawada. For Tawada’s daily series The Trainee (2023–24), published in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbum newspaper, Shiota created around 400 watercolor and charcoal drawings, each stitched with her signature red threads.
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