Japanese artist’s secret magical realm in Hong Kong uses music, theatre, puppets, embroidery and painting to convey death’s omnipresence
- Yuriko Sasaoka’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, at PHD gallery’s secret headquarters, puts her macabre sense of humour on full display
- Fish-head puppets that jingle like wind chimes as you pass through are her way of admonishing herself for taking fish for granted, she says
Visitors who make their way to PHD gallery’s by-appointment-only secret headquarters in Hong Kong will find themselves transported to a magical realm created by Yuriko Sasaoka, an artist based in Kyoto, Japan, who uses music, theatre, puppets, embroidery and painting to convey, with childlike wonder, death’s omnipresence.
Two curtained doorways lead to a womblike exhibition space swathed in purple and crimson fabric and wall-to-wall carpeting, where three large panels decked out with circus lights are showing Sasaoka’s 10-minute video Planaria (2020-21).
The film shows three hunters (with Sasaoka herself in the lead) who look like short-sighted beavers in their funny fur suits, brandishing various props and puppets made with preserved fish heads as they describe the top 12 causes of death in countries with the highest suicide rates.
The comic song-and-dance routine deliberately blurs the line between suicide and being killed off. After all, people can’t possibly commit suicide in Japan through “extreme orgasm”. Neither are Russians deliberately exposing themselves to toxic nerve agents.
The tongue-in-cheek national stereotypes – the Japanese obsession with pornography, Russia’s deadly secret service – are reinforced by the ethnic costumes in which Sasaoka has dressed the fish-head puppets.
