Shigeko Hirakawa - Nature 2 - Family tree / death

Family Tree / Death 1997

130 m in length on the river bank Silguy of Midouze
in Mont-de-Marsan,

5 ellipses of 12 - 15m in length containing 40 oak and pine strumps,
red sand from the bull fighting arena, 25 billets of maritime pine and the "void"

(Exhibition "Mont-de-Marsan sculptures, - Japan- Creations in-situation, 1997",
Organisation of Mont-de-Marsan City and Despiau-Wlérick Museum)

From the text by Pierre Restany
(catalogue "Mont-de-Marsan sculptures, - Japan - Creations in-situation 1997")

Downstream from the bridge, the Midouze, on the bank of the Silguy quay, the former river port from which the barges carrying the casks of Armagnac joined the Adour and Bayonne, Shigeko Hirakawa has developed the second part of her installation in a partially degraded site : over a total length of 130 m, on the abandoned banks, she has drawn a wavy path made from a succession of three ellipses composed of the red earth from the local arenas and alternating piles of stumps (roots on the top/ roots on the bottom) and ordinary blocks. The symbology of the ellipse with this artist reflects the dualism of the term : foreshortening of the geometric ellipse which evokes the compression of the earth ; foreshortening of the syntactic ellipse which corresponds to a strategy of omission in speech and which calls on notions of what is missing and empty. Kuniyasu's spiral evokes the return to me, Shigeko Hirakawa's ellipse evokes another turning inward of the being on the essential dialectic between life and death. Life in the semi-sphere of the drinking place, death in the hem of the banks of the Midouze...

* life : Transmutation / Life
* death : Family Tree (Genealogical Tree) / Death

Text by Shigeko Hirakawa (catalogue "Mont-de-Marsan sculptures, - Japan - Creations in-situation 1997")

	the place December 1996 Quai Silguy, in Mont-de-Marsan

	Beginning of the preparation, April 1997


	May 1997 Achievement of the artwork


	Opening day of the exhibition, May 1997 Global view from the bridge 130m long

	Family Tree / Death May 1997

	In the morning of the opening day, a man rides a bycycle beside his dog along the installation 130m long.



	Three months later, August 1997

Shigeko HIRAKAWA Nature 2 － Family Tree / Death

Shigeko HIRAKAWA
Nature 2　－　 Family Tree / Death