HONG KONG.- Para Site presents ‘Sounding Lines’, a solo exhibition of the acclaimed New York-based artist Aki Sasamoto. Situated between sculpture and performance, the exhibition marks the first major solo presentation of the artist in Hong Kong and features a newly commissioned installation and performance in conversation with a recent moving-image work.
Fables, anecdotes, and biographical elements often seep into Sasamoto’s works that explore relationships between body and space, engaging viewers on multiple sensory levels through a stream-of-consciousness interaction. The newly commissioned installation takes over the entire exhibition floor, where waves will be sent via a system of metal springs suspended throughout the gallery’s architecture to activate a choreography of catalytic movements. The exhibition title ‘Sounding Lines’ alludes to the method of measuring the depths of bodies of water with a weighted line. Expanding on this concept, the exhibition explores the boundaries and interrelations among people and their physical surroundings, focusing on how these relationships define a sense of intimacy or distance to the world at large.
The exhibition draws a connection between a new series of work and Sasamoto’s recent moving-image piece Point Reflection (video) (2023). Centring on the idea of controlled chaos, the meditative film captures the artist amidst an array of objects as they momentarily float, scatter, and swirl on a table with air holes improvised from a modified commercial kitchen sink. Traversing sculpture, installation, performance, and storytelling, the exhibition highlights the rich interconnectedness and experimental nature of Sasamoto’s ever-expanding universe of objects, actions, and words.
Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980 in Yokohama; lives and works in New York) works in performance, sculpture, dance, and video. Her videos often develop in tandem with her performance and installation work, where improvisational performances combining spoken narrative and physical contortions unfold in a feedback loop with careful arrangements of sculpturally altered found objects and multimedia elements. Sasamoto’s institutional solo exhibitions include those at the Queens Museum, New York (2023–2024); The Kitchen, New York (2017); and SculptureCenter, New York (2016). She has participated widely in international exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), the Aichi Triennale (2022), the Busan Biennale (2022), the Okayama Art Summit (2022), the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016), and Yokohama Triennale (2008).
