semester one NATURE

Week1

My Body, Small Nature

When people talk about ‘nature’, we usually address them as ecological elements and phenomena like weather, air, land, sea, and sky. I got overwhelmed by thinking about working with tho they’re too broad, too large, too powerful… What if I look smaller nature like the human body and mind?

I decided to start working on my hair. It’s part of my body and one of the parts where I feel easy to deal with. I touch my hair every day; brushing, styling, and washing them. Sometimes, I go to the salon to cut or dye my hair. Nevertheless, my hair continues growing and falling off from my scalp. This is the ‘nature’ I want to start looking at.

The hair on my pillow, hairbrush, or on the bathroom floor is usually annoying and it took so much effort to clean them up. Instead of cleaning them I collect them and use as materials for my experiment. My hair naturally curly but for a long time, I straightened it. So I did the same care for hair (which my body decided it not necessary any more) which I collected. I washed, dried, straighten with hair iron, put hair oil, used hair wax and braid.

Roses

In the next step, I wanted to be more closer to nature but not from my body. When I was drinking espresso in the cafe, I found flower bouquet on the table. As a painter, I started to sketch them. As I drawing I discovered the complex structure and thumbnailed nature in it. Leaves and flowers fall when the season changes as does human hair.

When I decided to work with flowers and leaves I went to the supermarket to get some bouquet. I choose white roses because of its colour and its cultural context. Both hair and flower have quite a lot of cultural, historical references especially in the field of fashion and beauty.

Using a string made by my falling hair, I combine a rose and the string. comparing them, I found that flowers die faster but hair last longer, so I decided to observe how the work I made will change as time goes by.

References for roses

In modern society, the roses are often used as a symbol of romantic relationships. Here, I looked at the symbolism of roses in culture and literature contexts.

Beauty and the Beast, fairytale

Beauty had desired a rose. In some versions, there is an enchanted rose.

 ‘Roses Are Red’, classic English rhyming poem

Roses are red,

Violet are blue,

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

classic English rhyming poem

it’s often used to imply that things are what they are.

it’s used to imply that the names do not affect what they truly are.

Portrait of Marie-Antoinette

Painting of iconic fashion leader in history with a rose.

Female Nude with Roses

References of (woman) Hair

Hair (Long Hair) often symbolises the youth, health, and beauty. Hairdressers or barbers have a long history as an occupation. Nowadays, there are so many hair-care products on the beauty market. Also, it related beauty struggles that especially women have.

Talking about my own experience, I had used to get a straight perm to my hair since when I was ten. Growing up in Japan, people whom most of them have straight hair didn’t stop commenting about my curly hair because it wasn’t ‘normal’ for them.

Coat spring/summer 2009, Maison Margiela

The Artisanal concept is central to the philosophy of the house: one-of-a kind, handmade objects made from repurposed or cheap textiles and found objects, show that luxury resides not so much in the preciosity or opulence of the materials, but that the artisanship, time and effort which went into the garment are what makes it haute couture. 

The MET

Berlin Exercises: Dreaming under Water 1974-5, Rebecca Horn

‘Cutting one’s hair with two pairs of scissors simultaneously’ begins with a man describing the ‘combat dances’ and mating rituals of certain snakes (in German, with English subtitles). The artist appears during the narration in a close up, holding a pair of scissors in each hand and crudely cutting her hair shorter and shorter. In the final sequence, one of the windows appears to open by itself. The film ends with a brief textual epilogue superimposed on the image of the empty room with one open widow. It translates as: ‘When a woman and her lover lie on one side looking at each other, / and she twines her legs around the man’s legs / with the window wide open, it is the oasis’.

Tate,

Two pairs of scissors she uses might represent snakes that the man described. At the same time, they can be a metaphor for men. The way she cuts her hair is so violent that she keeps continuing cutting even it’s quite close to her eyes, and she slipped them on her face. However, her facial expression shows sadness, anger, and horror, so it looks like she was forced to do the act. If pairs of scissors represent men, the hair represents women. The fact she is cutting her hair by herself displays that in a patriarchal society, men control women or made the one who doesn’t obey them as “crazy woman”.