THEimpossible not to notice it. In Paris, in front of the newly renovated Grand Palais, between December and March there was a constant, patient – and hopeful – queue of people “on the waiting list”. The entrances for The Soul Trembles (The soul trembles) were exhausted, causing sudden bouts of Fomo (Fear Of Missing Outthe fear of being left out of the event). Luckily it is not true that trains only pass once: the great retrospective of Chiharu Shiota (do you remember her? She was the artist who represented Japan at the 2015 Venice Biennale) will arrive on October 22nd at the Mao – the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin – and will remain until June 28th 2026.
From Osaka to Berlin
«I am very happy to exhibit in Italy» he pressed she is from Berlin (she has lived there for years, after leaving her native Osaka)despite now being used to freebies: two of his solo shows are underway in New York while he is already planning appointments in London, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Canada for 2026…
The exhibition in France has always been sold out. What will have struck the public so much?
Maybe the fact that it is a timeless and borderless job? In the period in which I was preparing it, death seemed close to me and this chord resonates in everyone, the perception that life is over.
Chiharu Shiota puts the finishing touches on her installation in New York.
“Death Near”
In what sense does “death seem near”?
The day after accepting the invitation to set it up, I had a medical check-up: the doctor told me that the cancer had returned, after twelve years. I had to go through surgery and chemo while organizing this exhibition. It was an incredibly difficult time, I reflected on the end, on where the spirit goes… I had never thought about it so much. My daughter was nine years old at the time and I wondered: how will she be able to go on without me? And how will the soul be able to imagine it? So I made the video About the Soul (On the soul), in which I asked questions to other children his age. This experience inspired the title.
Chiharu Shiota and the diary
“Accumulation – Searching for a Destination” by Chiharu Shiota, on display in Turin.
Can creativity prove therapeutic?
No, it’s not therapy: it’s something I need, it’s more like an emergency. It can allow me to express emotions, but the deep feelings remain after the work is finished.
Today the soul trembles more than ever, between wars and eco-catastrophes… What do you think is the role of art in dark ages?
Art has no borders. War is a question of borders between countries, art is free. And then it doesn’t propose a single question or provide a single answer, it welcomes everything. This is why it is important: it shows that we are all different, but we live on the same planet; allows different opinions to coexist. Ecological problems remind us of death, but death is not exclusively an end: it is a passage to another world. The soul is part of something bigger than us.
“Where are we going?” Where are we going?, to mention one of your installations?
I do not know. To search for an answer, I inserted the boats and pointed them towards the sky.
Which of the many works do you consider the most emblematic of your current state of mind?
Perhaps Diarieswhich I presented at the Japan Society in New York (the installation Two Home Countries, Two homelandswill remain until January 11, 2026, ed): I used the diary that a Japanese soldier wrote during World War II and which concluded: “If you find it, please give it to my family.” It touched me: at that moment it wasn’t just a soldier speaking, a human being was speaking. I connected this diary with a red thread, as if to unite people together. Those fighters were so young, barely eighteen.
The works in Turin
“Reflection of Space and Time” by Chiharu Shiota, until June in Turin.
We’ll see in Turin Accumulation – Searching for a Destination And Reflection of Space and Time. In these cases, what was the initial spark?
For the first (Accumulation – Looking for a destination, ed), the idea dates back to when I moved to Germany and only had one suitcase with me. Several years later, at the Berlin flea market, I saw some old ones and felt a strong desire to buy them. I opened one and, inside, there was a newspaper from the 1940s and a list of things to pack… A list surprisingly similar to the one I could have drawn up. This experience pushed me to collect others and to ask myself questions about why people travel, to the point of wondering about the migrations of peoples… I always start from a personal experience and try to expand it until it becomes something universal.
And the second job, Reflection of space and timewith two dresses as the subject?
It comes from the suggestion that a dress is like a second skin. I positioned a mirror diagonally and, because of the black threads, people often don’t realize it immediately: two dresses appear in the frame. The second is real, but also not real… Sometimes a reality is hidden by another reality, and what we see is a reflection of time and space.
When did you first decide to use threads?
I always wanted to be a painter, but I stopped painting because everything I created seemed to be someone else’s. I intended to find my identity in art. I started using black thread because it reminded me of a pencil line, like in a drawing: I wanted to trace designs in the air.
“Me and dance”
“Uncertain Journey” by Chiharu Shiota, at the Mao in Turin.
A bit like choreographers do with bodies: it is no coincidence that Sasha Waltz and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui entrusted her with the sets of their ballets.
I think they are interested in the fact that I create a sense of existence in absence…
Which state of mind determines the choice between black threads and red threads?
I had already used some red thread in the past, however it was at the Venice Biennale in 2015 that I used it for a sort of spider web, with fifty thousand keys suspended. Black is more abstract, dark like the night sky or the universe. Red, on the other hand, is like blood, it binds to people.
Here, exactly. Some of his installations can be seen as cobwebs.
No, for goodness sake! Spiders use webs to catch insects. My networks are about connections, like neurons in the brain or those invisible lines that connect us all.
Use objects from everyday life: in addition to keys, fabrics, clothes, toys, chairs and pianos… Strictly used.
I’m not interested in the new ones because they have no memory, they have no history. I have no connection with the future, my art is always linked to the past. I’m not interested in anything that doesn’t have that connection; I cannot create without memory.
When did you discover your vocation?
I was 12 years old. My teachers complimented my drawings, and I enjoyed dedicating myself to portraits and landscapes. I painted every day, even with my bare fingers.
“Balanced between two cultures”
“Where Are We Going?” by Chiharu Shiota.
What do you remember about childhood?
My parents were busy every day in their factory: they were super busy, almost as if they had to become machines themselves, and I played a lot with my brother. There was a lake behind our house, we caught fish or insects and stayed in the greenery.
The next stages of his journey?
It seemed quite natural to enroll in art school and, later, university. Gradually, everything happened by coincidence: even fighting cancer twice turned out to be a turning point for my inventiveness. After university I stopped painting for ten years but, when I got ill, I started drawing again, and the result was much more emotional. I told you about the second episode, immediately after having received the commission The Soul Trembles: It offered me purpose, motivation, and the drive to experiment with new materials.
Do you feel in the wake of the Eastern or Western tradition? Were Yayoi Kusama or Yoko Ono role models?
I am perpetually poised between Eastern and Western cultures. I have lived in Germany for over half my life and visit Japan every year… I have always felt in the middle: I can’t decide where I belong. As for models, no, I didn’t have any. I have never liked being placed in the category of “Japanese artist” or “female artist”: I just want to be Chiharu Shiota.
Overtourism in Tokyo
Japan is a victim ofovertourismof the overcrowding of tourists: the secret of this attraction?
Zen culture, I guess. Which I also find beautiful: having so much, the “less” becomes more attractive. Minimalism is the opposite of today’s Western world, where there is so much, too much: this feeling is probably shared. More generally, since Japan is an island, its traditions are special, unique, without considering its nature and its food.
What do you call “home” today?
Art is my home. It has no country or borders, I can exclusively be myself. I have my world there.