Fabric of Memory: Artists Elevate Secondhand Clothes into Monumental Art
In a powerful exploration of memory and materiality, artists Yin Xiuzhen and Chiharu Shiota are transforming worn garments and found objects into vast, immersive installations at London's Hayward Gallery. Their parallel exhibitions, Heart to Heart and Threads of Life, delve into how everyday items carry the weight of human experience, creating monumental art that resonates with collective narratives.
Yin Xiuzhen: Clothing as a Narrator of Life
Beijing-born artist Yin Xiuzhen rejects the term secondhand for the clothes she uses, preferring worn or used. Clothes that have been worn carry a lot of information, like a second skin imprinted with social meaning, she explains. Her works, displayed on the lower floor of the Hayward Gallery, feature garments stretched across steel frames or repurposed into soft sculptures, telling personal and societal stories. Yin's early piece, Dress Box from 1995, encapsulates 30 years of her own clothing in a sealed chest, symbolizing entombed memories and physical traces of time.
Growing up during China's Cultural Revolution, Yin developed a deep kinship with textiles through her mother, who worked in a clothing factory. This background informs her ongoing Portable Cities series, where she collects garments from global donors to create miniature cityscapes in suitcases. For the Hayward exhibition, she includes eight cities, such as Beijing, New York, and London, with nearly 180 items donated locally, forming a tactile map of urban life.
Chiharu Shiota: Weaving Threads of Existence
On the gallery's second floor, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota presents Threads of Life, using yarn to weave found objects like suitcases, keys, and letters into expansive web-like installations. I want to create this feeling of shared experience and existence, Shiota says, emphasizing how memory connects to daily objects. Based in Berlin, she transitioned from painting to thread work in the 2000s, allowing her to draw in three dimensions and explore human relationships through tangled and connecting lines.
Shiota's art is deeply influenced by her personal battles with ovarian cancer, diagnosed in 2005 and again in 2017. These experiences infuse her work with themes of mortality and fragility, as seen in installations like During Sleep, where women lie in hospital beds encased in black thread. Her landmark 2019 exhibition, The Soul Trembles at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, became one of the institution's most visited shows, reflecting her profound contemplation of life and death.
Parallel Visions and Shared Themes
Although Yin and Shiota have exhibited together at biennials before, this is their first time in such close proximity. Hayward Gallery senior curator Yung Ma notes their overlapping interests: Both artists explore how textiles and found objects can carry identity and lived experience, he says. Born in 1963 and 1972 respectively, they rose to international prominence in the late 1990s, with Ma highlighting the significance of two female artists with strong thematic connections.
While both use similar materials, their approaches differ: Yin reacts to external societal changes, whereas Shiota draws from inner emotional landscapes. Their installations make full use of the Hayward's expansive space, allowing visitors to walk through floor-to-ceiling works that map shared human experiences. Through collected objects, they preserve stories embedded in everyday things, offering a moving testament to the fabric of memory.
Chiharu Shiota's Threads of Life and Yin Xiuzhen's Heart to Heart are at the Hayward Gallery, London, until 3 May.
