Kumi Yamashita

The following works - Boat, Paper Cup and Camellia - belong to a newer series entitled Mountains and Valleys. The term “Mountains and Valleys” not only refers to topographic descriptions of landscape, but also to two of the simplest folds within the art of origami - “mountain” folds and “valley” folds. Mountains and Valleys explores the idea that we move through a mysterious world without ever fully knowing its true shape.

For the works I call Unfolding Cosmos, I recreate the folding patterns of 25 classic origami shapes - animals, flowers, objects, etc, and then integrate them into a seamless whole. The result is a terrain of lines where boundaries blur and one existence connects with another.

This piece, entitled Sunny Days and Starry Nights, consists of flags from every country in the world - which existed at the time of creating the work in 2005 - sewn together geographically. The celestial symbols of the flags remain highlighted in the foreground while the other designs within the flags have been darkened to recede into the background. The result is an interplay of the symbols of our temporary bordered world set against the eternal boundless cosmos.

For this temporary installation, I hand cut and dyed each petal to bring a splash of warmth and color into this otherwise austere environment.