YAMBARU ART FESTIVAL
2022-2023

Maki Okojima

Two Oceans -- Conceived in the Sea, Impregnated by the Sea

Before we were born on this Earth, we were all wrapped in a membrane called the amnionic sack, floating in amniotic fluid as tiny nuclei.
The amniotic fluid of mammals is a thin salt water solution. According to anatomist Shigeo Miki, its salinity is the same as that of the sea when vertebrates were born in the ancient sea.
I have always felt that the ocean is the soup of life, but perhaps the sea is also the amniotic fluid of planet Earth.
Or perhaps the planet itself is a giant spore that holds our life.
In the ancient seawater stored in our mothers' wombs, we repeatedly divide, bathing our entire bodies in its rich nutrition.
The pre-embryonic embryo looks like a fish, then like an amphibian, then a reptile, and finally metamorphoses into a mammalian form.
Then, after ten months and ten days of life's evolutionary journey, we will go through the birth canal and come down to Earth.
Philosopher Emanuele Coccia has said, "Plants have made an ocean where no ocean exists. They transformed the world into a huge ocean of atmosphere and transmitted their oceanic habits to all living things. So yes, the land is also an ocean, surrounded by an amniotic ozone membrane created by the plants with their breath."

The ocean that is outside of us, impregnating us.
The ocean that is within us and impregnated by us.
In the elementary school by the sea, we think of the two oceans that keep us alive

• 

  Maki Okojima

  PROFILE

  Standing in the "in-between" worlds of different things, she seeks to depict the intertwined aspects of life and death. She received the VOCA Incentive Award in 2014. In 2017, she participated in the Tara Pacific Ocean Project, a scientific exploration vessel led by the Tara Ocean Foundation, supported by Agnès BAY. In 2021, she worked on the stage design for "Kukunochi Tektekumanatsunoboken" at KAAT. Her major exhibitions include "Correspondence" (2022, Chiba City Museum of Art | Shakuronokake Labo), "Contours of the Earth" (2022, Sezon Museum of Contemporary Art), "Re construction" (2020, Nerima Art Museum), "Setouchi International Art Festival - Awashima" ( (2019), solo exhibition "L'oeil de la Baleine/ Eye of the Whale" (2019, Paris Aquarium, France)

• 

  【Guest Curator】Haruka Ito

  PROFILE

  "General Director of PROJECT ATAMI. Representative Director of Island Japan Co.
  Born in Shiga Prefecture in 1979. Graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Law. Graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Law.
  After working as the director of Kyoto University of Arts Art and Design's Art Editing Research Center, magical, and ARTROOM, she started “island” in 2010.
  She has been active in bridging art and society by managing galleries, managing artists, and coordinating and planning external projects such as Roppongi Art Night, Terada Warehouse, ACAO SPA & RESORT, and the 108 ART PROJECT.
  She teaches art communication at the School of Cultural Conceptual Studies, Waseda University."