Chiharu Shiota - During Sleep & Trauma

Chiharu Shiota's exhibition at Haunch of Venison moves on from One Place with another room filling installation - During Sleep and then on to a series of smaller pieces Trauma.
During Sleep speaks hauntingly of that which goes on around us in the night when we sleep, the tunnel through which the audience walks could so easily close off behind them, leaving them no choice but to keep moving forward.

The creeping cobwebs that engulf and trap the unwary are constantly searching for a new victim

The innocent white bed and its crumpled sheets offer little protection from the encroaching mass of obliterating black webs

As one looks closer the shadows of the webs become visible as if dreams, or nightmares, were becoming manifest and multiplying in the gloom.


The final area of the exhibition, Trauma, is a series of smaller 'boxed' thread works that enclose everyday objects, such as dresses and hair brushes, in black webs. If the webs were white they might be seen as protecting the objects but here, in black, they trap and imprison forming an impenetrable barrier to those who might seek to free the objects.