CONFRONT - Cape of Good Hope
2022
OSB Board, Rebar, Movie
h.300 × w.800 × d.1600 cm
The motivation for me creating this project was the experience of standing at the Cape of Good Hope when I visited South Africa at 2018. Tracing the history of the Cape of Good Hope, this cape was a major turning point that changed the common sense of the world. The world has formed and united in a different way when it was discovered by Portugal during the Age of Discovery.
55 years after Portugal discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, the ship carrying the Portuguese was heading for Shanghai, China. However, it was washed away by the East China Sea Current, the Kuroshio Current, and a large storm that flowed over there, and landed at Cape Kadokura in Tanegashima by chance. Due to this incident, Tanegashima also become a turning point that brought about major changes in Japan later. This opens the door to Western culture for the first time in Japan. As history continues to unfold, this time I have set the Cape of Good Hope as the start of an axis, and the goal of it in Tanegashima in order to connect that axis with oneself.
There is a flow of time about 500 years, but this time I thought about how to make it continuous within myself and how to connect and share spaces in my consciousness beyond time. This project establishes a spiritual relationship rather than a physical relationship at Musashino Art University. I have challenged the axis as a metaphor this time.
One side of the object was physically modeled to look into the distance while imaginig the Cape of Good Hope. Also, I wanted a metaphor that confronts the distance at the top of the object, so I used the reverse horizon to express it. The Cape of Good Hope is located on the extension of the intersection of this reverse horizon and the actual horizon.
The other side of the project was set to allow people to feel the impression that when you actually went to Tanegashoma, you could see the ocean as an image of Cape of Good Hope that you actually see from Tanegashima.
The objects on both ends are facing back-to-back because the Cape of Good Hope exists on the extension line drawn from the axis, with passing through the curve of the sphere. I have also indicated the direction axis of Portugal from the center of the object and installed a stair-shaped object there. The stairs shows that there is a direction from one point to a spot and giving the presence of direction.
I created this object so that I could consciously share how I saw and experienced the world.
