JURI SUZUKI

Experience of color of light

2014
Installation, Outside
Woods, nails, acrylic plate, cutting sheet

I’m searching about the moment, the presence, the now. How we can experience it? I propose with the use of the means: space, objects - and light.

In this installation I build a space myself.

I made a space to distinguish to the world. I see this installation as an empty space to contemplate. The ceiling is transparent colored glass, I wanted to make an experience between colored object and the colored shadow as a effect and the evidence of the natural light of the moment. I wanted to make a void - to think on nothing from the normal daily life. The daily life is so busy and chaos, I make an empty space without language to just have an experience.

I researched on ‘Sand play therapy’ made by C.G. Jung, as well as on Japanese sand garden. In the ‘Sand play therapy’ the patient places objects into a sandbox. According to Jung the shear process of doing so was a healing therapy. In the Japanese sand garden, the visitors contemplate themselves by watching the sand garden itself. I’m interested in the possibility to connect my conscious mind and inner world by seeing or placing objects in a space.

Studying Jung’s Sand play therapy and the Japanese sand gardens I realized that it in both philosophies it is crucial to have a wall that separates or distinguishes the small world itself from the outside. In sand garden, the visitor heals himself in the garden that is distinguished by the wall. In Sand play therapy, the patient could make his own world in the sand box because of the wall from the real or outer world.

In Zen philosophy, words are not important. The experience itself is important. When I make my work, I try to make an experience – and not to understand something by words or rhetoric.

For me to making objects is not the principle. For me, the objects are the tools to make the opportunity to experience.

In a more abstracted or simplified understanding, I produced a perfect space. Because I have placed objects in the already existing space, but this time, I try to make a space by myself to make an experience of the colored light itself, and the spectator could be involved between the colored object and the it’s colored shadow.

Color – Yellow

I chose the color yellow. Because the sky of winter of Amsterdam is almost grey. Sometimes the sky is sky blue. I don’t see sun so much if I compare the weather to Japan. I wanted the light more positive or contrast of the color to the sky. So I choose yellow. If you see the space from outside, the space looks complete yellow. But if you enter the room, the space is a bit of green yellow. The colored light of blue sky and the yellow ceiling are mixed and the light of the room becomes yellow green. Through making yellow colored space, I realized the world is wrapped in the blue. Because the world is wrapped in blue everywhere, we don’t notice it. But after experiencing the space, I realized about it.

Object, space, spectator, light and shadow

During this semester, I have recearched about the relation between the objects, the space, and spectator through using light and shadow in the space. I made several objects last year. But I noticed I was too concentrate about the objects and the space. I didn’t think about the spectator. After the midterm, I began to think about the spectator again. How we can experience the moment using light and shadow in the space?

For me, light proves the moment and now, the shadow proves the existence of the objects. I would like to see the light and object as one thing. Because both light and shadow can't exist only the half. Both light and shadow need the other half.

After the midterm, I try to think about how we can experience the moment, not only thinking about the object and space. And then I decide to make a space to feel the colored light and shadow. I use color to emphasize the light and shadow to realize about it.