Tomoya Sakai: Heritage series, 2021-2024
The Heritage series is a group of works focusing on casual memories of other people. Memory is the evidence they have lived or their life itself. But their memories gradually disappear as they age and completely vanish when they die. I want to save those memories that will fade without being engraved in history.
In the ReCollection series, I have given shape to my unconscious memories using clay and a potter’s wheel. The shapes born like this have inspired viewers’ memories. In the Heritage series, I try to connect my works and viewers by applying this technique and making the memories of others three-dimensional.
I spend a lot of time listening to the memories of others and taking them in little by little. The fragments of those memories are abstracted through clay and a potter’s wheel and rebuilt to rise as three-dimensional objects. The works of memories born in this way inspire viewers’ memories, link past and present, and start to exist.
The fragments of memories baked through the rituals of firing can live for a very long time. I want to bring down the evidence that our loved ones have lived.
Captions
- Heritage series E.S 1955, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 34x13x24 cm
- Heritage series A.K 2003 Mistake, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 34x30x25 cm
- Heritage series E.S 1945, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x33x19 cm
- Heritage series E.S 1942 Gift, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x25x36 cm
- Heritage series E.S 1944 I want it., 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x11x20 cm
- Heritage series E.S 1949 The first, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 15x15x26, 16 x 16 x 29 cm
- Heritage series E.S 1963 “Sad and angry”, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x20x35 cm
- Heritage series FAM 2023 Chupa chups, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 27x22x38 cm
- Heritage series H.K 2023 Trigger, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 32x11x32 cm
- Heritage series S.T 2023 I’m counting on you., 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 32x29x24 cm
- Heritage series T.K 1999 Help, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 36x35x36 cm
- Heritage series T.K 1986 “SHIORI”, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 29x27x21 cm
