Chiharu Shiota on the threads that connect us

Renowned for her iconic installations that weave intricate thread and evocative objects in a profound exploration of the connections that make us human, Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota tells Dionne Bel about her new winter show in Paris 

Celebrated for her powerful installations crafted from delicate networks of intersecting thread, Chiharu Shiota explores themes of memory, human relationships, trauma, death and presence in absence. Trapping secondhand materials like keys, chairs, beds, suitcases and boats in her vast webs of wool or string, her works create visual metaphors for the invisible ties that bind individuals to their histories and to one another. These ordinary objects carry the memories of their owners, such as the doll’s furniture she collected at flea markets in Berlin, which features in her installation Connecting Small Memories. 

Shiota’s artworks often reflect her personal experiences, such as grappling with loss or contemplating life as a journey with no destination, but they also transcend the personal to explore the collective human condition. Take, for example, Dialogue from DNA, for which she asked people to donate shoes linked to a memory and to include a personal written note. In this creation, the shoes act as intermediaries and enable a connection with a person’s memory, while the threads symbolically link the feelings of strangers together. 

Shiota’s current solo exhibition, The Soul Trembles, at the Grand Palais in Paris until March 19, 2025, marks a significant moment in her career as the largest show ever devoted to her in France. Following its tour through Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Indonesia and China, the retrospective brings together her most iconic works from her three-decade-long career, including large-scale installations, sculptures, drawings, photos and videos. It offers a deeply immersive experience, inviting viewers to navigate labyrinthine expanses of thread and reflect on the fragile yet resilient nature of existence. 

Her art’s ephemeral quality – where installations are dismantled after each exhibition – reflects the impermanence of life, yet survives long after in people’s memories. At the same time, the artist’s bronze, brass and metal wire sculptures succeed in giving lasting form to what she seeks in her fleeting thread environments: an emotion made visible, or the stirring of the soul. For Parisian audiences, this show is both a tribute to Shiota’s artistic legacy and an opportunity to experience the universal language of her creations. 

Your work is known for its evocative use of threads to weave emotions and memories. How did you first discover the power of this medium, and what does it allow you to express that other materials might not?

I’d always wanted to be a painter, but when I was painting at art school, I felt like everything I made had already been created. I felt like I was imitating someone else’s work. I wanted to create drawings in three dimensions, and started to thread; it’s like I’m drawing in the air. Thread is a very flexible material, and when it’s cut, tangled, loose or tense, it’s like a mirror of my feelings. The material is about emotions and the relationships of human beings. This is what I can express through the material. 

What is your process for selecting the objects – such as clothing, shoes, suitcases, keys, sheets of paper, boats, doors, chairs, beds or doll’s furniture – that you incorporate into your installations?

I only use old, worn-out items that have belonged to someone before, like doll’s furniture, shoes or keys, because if I use new items, there’s no memory inside. Even the boats I use were used by people before. They are not made for my installation, but used in a very different way. I want to connect memory with my string. I like to visit flea markets in Berlin, and when I see items like family albums, passports or graduate certificates, there’s so much memory. These items had so much meaning when the people were alive. 

Can you walk us through your creative process when starting a new installation? How do you go from an idea to creating a physically immersive experience?

When I have an idea, I normally want to keep it in my mind until I see the exhibition space. I don’t want to make any drawings of the installations because it’s never exactly on paper what I’m imagining. I only want to keep it in my mind, and when I see the exhibition space, if I can remember this idea, I want to put this new idea to the space, and start making sketches. That is why I always need to see and feel the space. I try to visit the exhibition space many times. For the 2015 Venice Biennale, I visited almost every month during the preparation. I needed to imagine the work within the space and see if my idea would work. Then we collect materials, I choose my team and local helpers and we set up the installation. Normally, the museum cannot close the space for too long, so I usually have two weeks. 

The exhibition title, The Soul Trembles, suggests vulnerability and an inner emotional landscape. How does this title reflect your personal artistic journey?

When I was invited by Mami Kataoka, then curator, today director of the Mori Art Museum, I was very happy, but the very next day, I was at a routine check-up and the doctor informed me that I had a cancerous tumour. I felt like the earth fell beneath my feet. During the preparation of this show, I had surgery and chemotherapy and was thinking a lot about death and about my daughter. She was only nine years old and I thought, ‘How can she live without a mother?’ I thought about my soul and what happens when my body is gone. Would my soul remain? And I wondered what my daughter thought about the soul. This was the inspiration of the title. 

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