Have you ever seen a golden fusuma (sliding door) and a golden byobu (folding screen) inside a dark room within the depth of a large building, where light from outside is unable to reach, capturing a spear of light coming from the garden several rooms away and faintly reflecting this light in a dream-like manner? This reflection throws to its surrounding darkness a truly delicate golden light like horizon at sunset. I cannot think of any other time when gold displays such mournful beauty.

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows.

 

The exhibition presents work by six artists from different cultural backgrounds (Japan, UK and Israel) exploring the universal themes of light and dark with emphasis on the importance of darkness as investigated in the seminal Japanese text, In Praise of Shadows (1933) by Junichiro Tanizaki.

The essence of this text is contained in the above paragraph where he eulogises the beauty of delicate light being thrown by golden traditional Japanese screens, made more prominent by the surrounding
darkness of a poorly lit room. In such a setting, darkness comes into being from nothing, playing an important role as it highlights the presence of light.

Through various media including sculpture, photography, installation and the moving image, each artist questions their place in a world that frequently appears to be dark. In a sense, each work acts as a source of light to illuminate this dark space and reveal new 'territories' - bringing about clarity and understanding of our existence within the framework of darkness.