Through the Past Darkly

摘要

MIDORI MITAMURA'S WORKS are inspired by memories drawn from her childhood. She rebuilds these memories using things like her mother's hand-made coat, dolls, a slowly rotating mirror, a bed, and old family photographs. The effect this has on viewers is to remind them of their own childhood memories, be they happy ones or sad. People who look at Mitamura's installations often become enveloped in a bittersweet, nostalgic reverie.These "Sealed Past" objects are not always comfortable to look at. in her Private Rom exhibition of 1995, she stuck prints of photographs from her nursery school days to lighboxes, but the lighboxes were overgrown with weeds. In one lighbox, a stuffed panda on the wall seemed to have been hung by the neck. Her childhood hair was stuck on with a magnet, and a tear gaped like an open mouth-the exhibit conveyed a pathetic air.