M A N A M I    I S H I M U R A     

Porous Weight

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rice, grapes, beans, tea, soil, steel, water system, paper, brass, acrylic, and iron

2022

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Grown, found, and formed, natural and artificial materials come together in Porous Weight, a collaborative installation with Nalani. Through materials and circular systems of accumulation, change, and decay, Porous Weight explores ephemeral existence and our bodies' porous and ever-changing materiality. Inspired by the often-gendered experiences of weeping, urination and menstruation, Nalani’s recent body of work focuses on unstable sculptures that grow, change, and disintegrate. Manami’s work depicts the ephemeral beauty of moments that usually go unseen. Like the sprouting of a plant. In Porous Weight, Manami and Nalani explore collaborative artistic practices, together creating a sculptural installation that reveals the liminal moments of our porous boundaries.

The ephemeral installation mirrors our bodies cycles of absorption, growth, disintegration, and death. Rice, grapes, beans, and tea ferment, slowly breaking down and being consumed, but in decay they also grow into something new, creating air, a breath moving through the system.

Water drips through layers of fermented kombucha skin, like the materials that move through our bodies, caught, and absorbed by our porous boundaries and then released through our orifices. A drip of water like a line of communication, blurring the boundary between these objects. Saturated skin releases so the earthen pots below can absorb its excess, breaking open with its weight.

The sculptures are created through the repetition of daily tasks, the labor and tenderness of packing soil, burnishing vessels, layering glue. Tracing your lifetime and body through materials and transferring time and care into sculptural objects.