Nicola Anthony’s Great Soul a sculpture created in 2014 has been selected as part of the Field Trip Project exhibition, at KL Biennale.
The Kuala Lumpur Biennale, opens today, Thursday, 23rd November, at The National Art Gallery of Malaysia, and runs until March 2018.
“It’s a real honour for me as a British artist to be invited to exhibit in Malaysia’s National Gallery” says Nicola.
Nicola would like to give special thanks to Daisuke Takeya, the organizer and curator of Field trip, to Tan Hui Koon, the curator of this Biennale showcase, and Zikri Rahman and Amir Muhammad (Kura) for coordinating for the Malaysian chapter of the project.
Great Soul (2014) is a travelling sculpture created within a randoseru (a traditional Japanese children’s backpack).
Great Soul responds to the trauma of environmental and social disaster in the areas affected by the 2011 earthquake in Japan. The artwork is inspired by Japanese folk tales, and the art of Kintsugi (金継ぎ, きんつぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, きんつくろい, “golden repair”).
This is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
Within the randoseru, is a mirrored interior. Upon this mirror sits a half-dome of fragmented text, so that this divided dome appears to become a complete sphere. Upon the curved surface 100 pins are inserted, so that they radiate outwards. On the head of each pin sits a disk of paper, each paper circle is hand-cut from a Japanese photo print of the earth as seen from space. This results in a fragmented earth, hovering within.
Great Soul has been exhibited at the Vargas Museum of the Philippines, the Aceh Tsunami Museum Indonesia, Oil Art Space Hong Kong, and exhibitions in Jakarta, Singapore and Tokyo. As part of the travelling process, it is worn by local individuals who journey with it to the next location.
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Kuala Lumpur Biennale 2017
23 November 2017 – 30 March 2018
National Art Gallery, Lembaga Pembangunan Seni Visual Negara, No. 2, Jalan Temerloh, Off Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur 53200, Malaysia
