Yurika Sunada: Texts for Web

Ambivalent
When Yurika Sunada moved from Tokyo to Berlin, she was surprised by a massive change of pace: While Tokyo was agile, her time in Berlin had come to a screeching halt from the confines of a corona-induced quarantine. During the months of March through May she barely went outside. And although time had seemingly congealed into molasses within the studio-bedroom, the world she observed through her windows kept its mundane, but constant speed. This difference in velocity slowly dissolved Sunada's perception of the outside, until it had liquefied completely and turned into something akin to an illusion or dream.
Revolving around its own axis, a slightly distorted circular ensemble of steel arches captures the temporal ambivalence Sunada felt while trapped  inside her studio. While the sphere moves slowly as through syrup, the webbed shadow it projects on the walls travels more quickly due to its widened silhouette–delicately illustrating the minds conflicting appreciation of time when perched between a stand-still and the  forward motion of time.

Yurika Sunada: Distortion. Stainless steel, Glass, Lenses. 2018. Photo: Michiko Ishikawa.

Yurika Sunada: Ambivalent. Stainless steel, Engine. 2020.
Photo: James Nizam.

Distortion

This mesmerizing coalescence of steel and light exists on the precipice of experience and remembrance.

As light is caught in the rotating steel crescent of the installation, it curves and refracts through a myriad of lenses, finally reconfigured into new constellations that pour onto the walls. As with our memories, the once straight rays of light are bent out of shape, stretched and spread, finding themselves in strange silhouettes irreconcilable with the event that caused them. As quickly as something is perceived, it is relegated to our memory - and no sooner begins the process of distortion.

www.en.yurika-sunada.com/