Akiko Okumura
L'île des ondes millénaires - Installation - 2016
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 18
This is a microcosm, a circular environment made up of the interactions of wave-like physical phenomena. These produce points of rupture and fusion between natural creation and human creation. In this installation, a miniature and synthetic ecosystem, the border between the two is uncertain, it functions through the movement whereby one endlessly alters the other. This composition orchestrates wave phenomena and shows us the prospect of the reciprocity of materials, at least as reduced to the range of human perception.
In the pool whose water is illuminated, a mechanical system generates waves that keep slapping into fragments of transparent Plexiglas. The light is invisible in the water because it passes through a transparent material. When an opaque substance enters this illuminated water, it reflects the light and becomes luminous. Governed by the optical phenomenon of transmittance, the inert Plexiglas takes on life and becomes a landscape of constantly changing appearances. The inertia of the waves is analysed and thus engenders the cyclical repetition of the process.
By controlling this chimerical environment, I am interrogating my identity as a human being who has created what we call an “artifice” while remaining a creature of nature.
Akiko Okumura
Akiko Okumura was born in Japan in 1986; she lives and works in Lille, France. After her graduation from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Etienne and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing, she had her first solo-show in 2012 at Bureau d'Art et de Recherche in Roubaix. Her installation and sculptural work explores the boundaries between the natural sciences and art. In 2014, she began working with film at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains. In her first film, made in Japan, she describes the transition between ancient folklore and urban supernatural phenomena. The film has been presented at contemporary art events and film festivals such as CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and FESTCURTAS BH in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
