Mariyo+Yagi

//For examples of Mariyo Yagi's work, see:// http://www.mariyoyagi.net/

//For background, see:// http://wwol.inre.asu.edu/yagi.html

//Ellen Schattschneider comments:// Mariyo Yagi, an artist now based in Kobe, Japan, does extraordinary work, inspired by the potent imagery of sacred Japanese ropes (//nawa)//. As an anthropologist who has worked on the symbolism of nawa in popular Japanese religous communities, I'm continually impressed and moved by Yagi's processes of bricolage, as she incorporates the ancient signs and energies of rope into works that speak directly to contemporary experiences of community, displacement, homecoming, and reinvigoration.

There's a fascinating [|on line interview with Mariyo], who constructed and ritually burned a great ritual rope (//"nawa"//) to honor the souls of those who perished in the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe. The artist specifically mentions Tsugaru, where I've done fieldwork, and compares the burning rope to a "fire dragon." The symbolism of this work of performance art strikingly recalls the dynamics of the Mountain Opening rite at Akakura Mountain Shriine, a northeastern Japanese mountain shrine I've studied, where the congregation annually raises a sacred rope (shimenawa). [For video clips of this event, see: [|http://people.brandeis.edu/~eschatt/ImmortalWishes/opening.html]

In many "traditional" Japanese settings, dynamic interactions beween rope, landscpae, and the gathered,active bodies of people help to produce and reproduce the human community and, in a sense, help produce and maintain the divinities (kami) themselves. In a comparable sense, Mariyo's monumental installations often incorporate rope, landscape features and actual, living people, tied together in vivid, pulsating choreographies that are socially and spiritually enriching.