LABYRINTH salt 5 x 14m Making Mends / Bellevue Arts Museum March - May, 2012
Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto, he use salt as the main material to do a series of sculpture and installation works. The environment as the background, white table salt as the pigment，Pictured above is the new "LABYRINTH" created by Motoi Yamamoto in 2012. Because his sister died of brain cancer in 1994. Since then, Motoi Yamamoto has had the dilemma, in grief and surprise, of thinking about what he had and lost. He started making art works that reflected such feelings and continue it as if he was writing a diary.
Many of him works take the form of labyrinths with complicated patterns, ruined and abandoned staircases or too narrow life-size tunnels. The trajectory of the labyrinth is his simulation of the human brain painted, each stack is the to the sister's thoughts, every rugged winding is the road of memory. Motoi said ："However, what I sought for was the way in which I could touch a precious moment in my memories which cannot be attained through pictures or writings. What I look for at the end of the act of drawing could be a feeling of touching a precious memory. "
When talking about why using white salt, he said："Salt seems to possess a close relation with human life beyond time and space. Moreover, especially in Japan, it is indispensable in the death culture. After my sister's death, what I began to do in order to accept this reality was examine how death was dealt with in the present social realm. I posed several related themes for myself such as brain death or terminal medical care and picked related materials accordingly. I then came to choose salt as a material for my work. This was when I started to focus on death customs in Japan. In the beginning, I was interested in the fact that salt is used in funerals or in its subtle transparency. But gradually I came to a point where the salt in my work might have been a part of some creature and supported their lives. Now I believe that salt enfolds the ﾒmemory of livesﾓ. I have thus had a special feeling since I started using it as a material. "
I also thought that salt has a close relation with human. It comes from nature, it like a human being, fading away, returning to nature in the end. This is why Motoi invited everyone to take the salt with a jar and finally sprinkle it into the sea after the exhibition of each piece of installation work.
Recently，I've been researching everything about salt. the story of salt playing an important role in Japan's death culture makes me feel interesting. So I search some information about the culture of death in Japan.
It turned out that salt was given to the funeral guests at the funeral in Japan in order to eliminate evil and purify the mind. Like KOBE JONES(2015) mentioned in the website : "At funerals, salt can be found on either side of the house entrance. Once the coffin has been removed, the house is then purified of spirits by scattering salt around the floors. Those attending the funeral will also scatter salt at their own front doors, believing this will stop the spirits from following them home."
People that come back from a funeral use this salt or other salt to purify themselves by scattering salt upon their body. In addition, some people will place small salt piles in left outside of houses in little pile of "mori shio" (piled up salt) generally to the right of the door，so that people who pass through the door are purified.
This small salt pile is called "盛り塩(もりじお)" in Japan, must be stacked into a conical type, there is the intention to shut out the “unclean” （ghost？）things.