Join us on June 6 for the opening of Hakoniwa

Hakoniwa 

A site-specific public art installation
by Nami Yamamoto
beginning June 6 at The Porch

Hakoniwa is the Japanese word for miniature garden as well as a form of psychotherapy, also known as “sandplay therapy,” whose subjects arrange various items within a small sandbox. Selecting and arranging a variety of objects in a box creates a world to help the player to perceive their own feelings, thoughts and unconscious insights. For this installation, Pew Fellow Nami Yamamoto has responded to The Porch’s concrete planters, creating a “garden” that extends the reach of the colorful forms within each planter. But rather than representing the flora seen around The Porch, Yamamoto has selected objects from her daily life and reproduced them in colorful, oversized silhouettes at once abstract and recognizable to passersby. Presented in a variety of playful arrangements, Yamamoto creates new visual narratives both from and for the everyday.