Art · Humanity & Health

The Ties That Bind

Ryan Filchak speaks with Chiharu Shiota on memory, material and the invisible ties that shape how we belong

words – chiharu shiota, ryan filchak
location – berlin, germany; lexington, usa

Entombed in a web of red wool stands a former Tibetan Buddhist doorway. Gateway to Silence, a site-specific installation, features a piece of antique porch, now separated from the larger architectural whole, to anchor a maze of fibre so pervasive that the colour bleeds beyond the thread to stain the walls and the structure itself. Hosted by Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing, this piece for the 2025 exhibition Chiharu Shiota: Silent Emptiness embodied what it means to engage with Shiota’s work: an open invitation to experience and reflect on the commonalities of human existence contained within life, death and memory.

The Berlin-based, Japanese-born artist addressed another theme often echoed in her work – home – during Two Home Countries, which opened at the Japan Society in New York City in September 2025. As she reflects on these two iconic bodies of work, writer Ryan Filchak spoke with the artist to ask about her influences and her process in relation to these concepts, as well as the impact of producing these works on the viewer and on herself.

Ryan Filchak

Are there artists, writers or personal memories that have been especially influential in shaping your visual language?

Chiharu Shiota

When I was a child, we had a daily newspaper, and every Sunday there was a special issue featuring a famous painting by Dalí, Picasso, Van Gogh and others. Alongside the image, its meaning was explained. I became very interested in art at that time and was completely fascinated by these works. I would cut them out and collect them all.

Later, when I was already in art school, I became deeply interested in Ana Mendieta. Her artwork feels like a conversation between her body and the universe. I felt that this was exactly what I wanted to express, I immediately understood her world without the need for language.

Ryan Filchak

Can you share what first drew you to using red thread in your installations? Furthermore, how has your relationship to this material evolved over time?

Chiharu Shiota

I first started using black, because it felt like I was drawing with a pencil in the air. I used red for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2015. While preparing for the exhibition, I lost my baby at six months, and soon after my father passed away. It was a very hard time for me, and I wanted to use red thread to show this invisible line. For me, it stands for blood and human connection. In Japan, there is also a legend that when a child is born, a red thread is tied to their little finger and connected to the person they are meant to meet. It is a very strong bond.

Ryan Filchak

Through massive, immersive sculptures imbued with personal and found items such as photographs, letters and suitcases, scale often plays a central role in your work – bringing the viewer into both small personal moments and large sculptural forms. In a New York Times profile of your practice, Ruth Erickson, the chief Curator at the ICA, praised your ability to deal with these challenges. Could you share how you scale factors into your process?

Chiharu Shiota

I like to create large installations because I can work much better in a big space. My artwork is always connected to the space; when I have a large space, I want to fill it. For me, the space and the artwork cannot be separated. With painting or sculpture, you don’t always have to think about the space, but with installations, the space becomes part of the work.

Working in large spaces also allows me to show the audience directly what I want to express. At the same time, big spaces are very challenging physically. Installing the work, hanging the ropes and moving through the space requires a lot of strength and energy.

Ryan Filchak

Beyond size, how much do you consider logistics when designing a particular commission?

Chiharu Shiota

For me, creating commissioned works and exhibition works feels the same. I always visit the space to feel its atmosphere and see how people enter the space and move in it. Then I can start thinking about the concept.

Ryan Filchak

Through these built environments, you call into consideration themes of memory, home and grief. For Home Less Home at the ICA watershed, the work speaks on immigration – drawing from your experience of having moved from Japan to Berlin, challenging a fixed concept of “home.” Could you explain your thought behind the direction of these most recent pieces?

Chiharu Shiota

I have now lived in Germany for more than half of my life. After my 50th birthday, I began to think more about the idea of home. My home has become Germany, in Berlin, but of course I cannot forget that I am also Japanese. I feel that I have two homes. And I realised that home is not only a physical place, but also something in the mind.

Earlier, I had an exhibition at Japan Society about identity and home, and another show in Bilbao, My House is Your House, which was also about home. This has become a very important theme for me: thinking about borders, what home really means, what makes a home and why conflict and war are so often connected to borders.

Ryan Filchak

Do you see this as an expansion of your practice, or do themes like nationality and homeland feel just as integral to identity as any other aspect of the human experience?

Chiharu Shiota

Yes, I think so. It’s all part of identity and our blood. Like in my performance Wall (2010). Everything is inside our blood: nationality, religion, home, culture, identity. But when these things become too strong, we cannot accept people from other countries. Then it becomes like a wall that we cannot overcome. This feeling is universal. My work is about these invisible boundaries. For me, it makes me happier to have two home countries rather than just one.

Ryan Filchak

To use your phrase, “presence in the absence,” it seems that there is an element of grief contained within any story of immigration. Grief around the loss of a home in a traditional sense. Grief in the loss of a road not traveled. Grief in the loss of agency. Do you feel this to be true?

Chiharu Shiota

But it’s not only about grief or losing a home – it’s also about finding a new one. I came to Germany to start a new life, explore new possibilities and experience more freedom. It was very difficult to be an artist in Japan; I was too young, and as a woman, it was even harder. Berlin was so popular among artists, so many people came there. There was plenty of space to have exhibitions and to have freedom as an artist.

Ryan Filchak

How do you hope viewers experience your installations, not just physically, but emotionally? Are you trying to create a particular kind of encounter with the work?

Chiharu Shiota

First, the visitors enter the space and have an initial feeling. Then they ask more technical questions: how it is made, how much thread is used, or how long it takes. But after spending more time with the work, they also have an emotional response. Some people even start crying and feel deeply touched. It’s very difficult to explain in language, but if I can communicate beyond words, I feel very happy.

Ryan Filchak

Does working with personal history, your own and others’, help you process the same questions of life and loss that your work asks viewers to confront? Do you see a connection between making and healing, or are those separate practices for you?

Chiharu Shiota

These are all personal feelings, and I am trying to answer these questions as a way of questioning myself. I don’t think I can produce or make art in any other way, it always comes from my private anxieties or personal matters. But for the audience, it is completely free; they can feel whatever they want.

Ryan Filchak

Even if they are separate, do you believe art can still spark meaningful conversations or action around mental health?

Chiharu Shiota

I want art to be part of ordinary life. People need the freedom to explore it, and then it can inspire other feelings and conversations. If we impose art on people, they won’t feel connected.

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Tagged Humanity & Health

The Ties That Bind

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Designing with Dignity

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