Threading her way through life

Her work often develops from a personal experience or emotion, which she expands to universal human concerns, such as life, death and relationships, curator of the exhibition Kataoka Mami, who is also director of the Mori Art Museum, said in a video message.

Shiota came to Shanghai with her team from Germany and Japan and they spent 21 days in quarantine first, so as to set up her exhibition themselves. Her works, especially her most famous cobweb-like installations, are room-size structures that involve large quantities of thread. It took more than 100 workers and 16 days to put up all exhibits.

The first exhibit, an installation named Uncertain Journey alone used up 280,000 meters of red wool yarn. The threads seem to emerge from several metal frames of boats, then rise and spread to take up a whole exhibition hall. The visitors step into the space, surrounded by red webs, feeling as if lost on a sea of blood.

"I have tried to present my artwork with emotions that I can't express with words," Shiota said, guiding media during a preview of the show on Dec 18.

The artist suffered from cancer in 2005, and in 2017 she had a relapse.

The illness and treatment made her feel "like different parts of my body were all falling off and breaking into pieces", she says, explaining the theme of the exhibition. "The experience made me think a lot about why we live, what is it that we are after when we embark on the journey of life?"

Her other installations also involve large quantities of thread tied to objects such as white dresses, used suitcases, shoes and even a burned piano. Using threads of different colors and texture, she stretches them throughout the space, evoking an emotional response in the audience.