on the imagination and fantasy, taking control of her own image with exotic self-portraits in urban settings and, later, in colourful landscapes. Now she has turned to themes of consciousness and our disconnection from nature through the rapid development of modern technology. Her reflective, abstract works invite us to consider ideas of ‘reoccuring space and eternal life’, a gentle challenge to take a deeper look at our world.

At BALTIC, Mori is exhibiting graceful drawings made at Okinawa Island, the largest of the subtropical Ryukyu islands chain, with dense forests, an uplifted coral reef and limestone eroded caves: ‘I’m in the process of learning about nature. Since I’ve been living in the city most of my life, I am trying to expose myself to nature, to feel the rhythm of nature and also trying to understand the balances of nature.’ Perhaps this kind of learning can be better shared through visual art than verbally. ‘I can’t articulate it with words, I can’t explain it linguistically, but I could draw… It’s filtered by my own body, but the experience that is in the drawings is like a kind of a memory, so I’m hoping that people can feel a certain essence and can share a feeling through my work.’ These delicate, meditative drawings, part of Mori’s Primal Particles and Parallel Brane series, are multi-faceted, also reflecting her curiosity towards brane cosmology and particle theory.

Passionate about collaboration, Mori works with experts in many technological fields, from computer programmers to architects and engineers. Her concepts require technologically innovative solutions, with the development stage sometimes taking three or four years, but ‘I always have to come back to the very essence, the very fundamental and primal point, so I don’t lose anything during the process of making the work.’ In this particular show, Mori worked with diachronic glass as a metaphor for consciousness; its reflection of light of a different colour from each different angle, constantly changing in appearance, reminded her of our own experience of the world. A by-product of the space industry, thin layers of metallic oxides, such as titanium, silicon, and magnesium are deposited on a glass surface in a high temperature, vacuum furnace, creating an iridescent, sparkling look. The diachronic glass installation Miracle offers ‘a window onto the cosmos… to awaken people’s deeper consciousness and make them aware of different realities.’

But does the artist herself believe in miracles? ‘The term miracle is very difficult to define, but I often experience something like it during the process of making work. I have co-incidence, I have some support, I have good surprises, sometimes a good accident.’ This summer, BALTIC’s gallery space is a place for contemplation and consideration, bidding us to be open to ‘good surprises’ in Mori’s beautiful and complex artworks, to think and feel in new ways.
rebecca hunter.

Mariko Mori at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, until 14 September 2008. 0191 478 1810. The full interview with the artist appears at www.whitehotmagazine.com

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