[{"id":306,"date":"2023-04-24T16:08:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T20:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=306"},"modified":"2023-04-24T16:36:50","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T20:36:50","slug":"spirituality","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirituality: Performance as Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Spirituality: Performance as Meditation<\/strong><\/h1>

\u00a0<\/strong>Kimsooja\u2019s art is filled with ties to the spiritual world. Performance became an actual practice of meditation for her. In an interview with Mary Jane Jacob between 2001 and 2003, Kimsooja states that the \u201cmost important thing to arise out of these performances is (my) own experience of self and awakeness. That\u2019s how (I) continue to ask deeper questions to the world and myself. That is the enlightenment (I) encounter while doing this kind of performance.\u201d[160] Kimsooja grew up practicing Christianity in her family home, but Korean life was dominated by Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism. It was inevitable, therefore, for these other religions to infiltrate her work and life. Her interest in Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy are the most apparent in her work. Kimsooja\u2019s sewing of fabric and choice of using bedcover bundles in her Bottari and Cities on the Move series are evident not only in her childhood and family life, but also in the meditations on the \u201cimpermanence of our lives\u201d that played an essential notion in her work.[161] The bedcover and bed represent the frame of life and death, and the impermanency of both because the bed is a site of both. They frame our existence.[162] In an interview with Nicolas Bourriaud in 2003, Kimsooja explains that her \u201cimmediate perceptions and decisions in creating art meet the disciplines of Buddhism\u201d but that making art and living her life were not consciously borrowed from Buddhist theories. She stopped reading for a decade to concentrate on her thoughts, free from any distractions. Once she started reading again, particularly on Buddhism, Kimsooja noticed the similarities in her work and perceptions of life.[163]<\/p>

Growing up in Korea, the code of moral conduct influenced by Confucianism still influenced Kimsooja. Dating 2,500 years back, Confucianism began in China and was most concerned with morality, inner virtue, and the most profound respect for one\u2019s community and its values.[164] It laid the foundation for Chinese culture and made its way into Korea by the fifth century CE, blending the pre-existing Korean culture and institutions. Korean Confucians used Confucian ideas that advocated hierarchy and moral leadership, particularly in bolstering their state bureaucracy and providing a rigid social structure. Korean Confucianism matured during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), and Neo-Confucianism, its recalibrated form, dislodged Buddhism as a rival system (intellectual and philosophical). The leading Korean Confucian tradition that Kimsooja seems to carry with her is the maintained social hierarchies. As mentioned previously, these hierarchies meant that women were disadvantaged and always expected to be subordinate to men: sons, husbands, and feathers. This created a harmonious society. Where Kimsooja displaces this Confucian value is her interpretation of the Needle Woman as cutting through or penetrating the social fabric.<\/p>

Confucianists believed they emphasized the practical everyday life of fulfilling social relations and didn\u2019t take Buddhists seriously. Confucian scholars and philosophers tried to undermine and discredit Buddhist teaching and beliefs whenever possible. Confucians saw Buddhists failing to achieve filial and social obligations because they removed themselves from both.[165] Regarding Catholicism and Confucian-Catholics, the earliest Korean converts to Catholicism were Confucian-strained scholars from aristocratic families. Kimsooja, a Catholic in Korean society with a long Confucian and Shamanistic tradition, certainly wasn\u2019t alone. Confucian aspects of early Catholicism reflected a transcultural interaction between the two rules. The similarities both highlighted their moral priorities.[166]<\/p>

In terms of the Needle Woman<\/em> and Kimsooja\u2019s spirituality, the Buddhist tradition has the most significant influence. Not only through her words but through visual clues do the spiritual elements in Needle Woman become evident. Her outfit in the videos, a dark grey robe, has been described as a monk outfit. Although Buddhist monks on the internet wear bright orange robes, the simplicity of the uniform is similar to Kimsooja\u2019s. And in fact, Kimsooja viewed her artistic practice as like that of a Buddhist monk.[167]<\/p>

Simplicity is one of the main teachings of Buddhism, and appearance certainly matches that.[168] Materialism is not a mindset that Kimsooja or Buddhists have. In terms of the performance itself, Kimsooja standing in the middle of each city was considered a meditation in itself. Meditation is also a part of natural human experience. Meditation is “a mental and physical course of action that a person uses to separate themselves from their thoughts and feelings to become fully aware.\u201d[169] Although we often think of meditation in connection with a religious element, such as the Buddhist teachings, this isn\u2019t always the case. In Buddhism, mediation involves the body and mind as a single entity.[170] At the beginning of Kimsooja\u2019s performance, as described by her in the interview with Mary Jane Jacob, she had \u201cdifficulty resisting all the energies from people coming at (me). By the middle of the performance, (I) was centered and focused and could become liberated from them. In the beginning, (my) body was very, very tense, but in the end, (I) was just smiling, liberated from all attention\u2026(I) was in complete enlightenment.\u201d[171] In the most general definition of meditation, Kimsooja takes control of her mind and becomes more aware.<\/p>

Although the lines between the feminist and spiritual readings in the work of Kimsooja aren\u2019t quite as blurred as those in Mariko Mori\u2019s, they are still drawn. The parallels are certainly harder to draw, with the spiritual aspects of Kimsooja\u2019s Needle Woman<\/em> being quickly apparent but the feminist ideologies more challenging to tie in. Although they don\u2019t cross into one another as much as in Mori\u2019s, they are still there. Kimsooja\u2019s spirituality, artistic expression, and meditation through art have been significant to building her identity, much like the women of other East Asian civilizations practicing Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Kimsooja\u2019s performative meditation was a genre in which she thrived and continues to thrive present day. She liberates herself as the Needle Woman<\/em> and finds her own form of enlightenment. Where Kimsooja finds peace engaging with the whole picture of the world, Mariko Mori finds peace inserting herself into alternate worlds or realities, such as the Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>.[172]<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[160] Jacob and Bass, Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art<\/em>, University of California Press, 2004: 217.<\/h5>
[161] Nicolas Bourriaud, \u201cInterview between Nicolas Bourriaud and Kim Sooja,\u201d in Kim Sooja: Conditions of Humanity<\/em>, ed. by Annie van Assche(Lyon: Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Contemporain, 2003), 45.<\/h5>
[162] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 130-131.<\/h5>
[163] Bourriaud, \u201cInterview,\u201d 45.<\/h5>
[164] National Geographic Society, \u201cConfucianism,\u201d accessed November 28, 2022, https:\/\/education.nationalgeographic.org\/resource\/confucianism\/.<\/h5>
[165] NGS, \u201cConfucianism,\u201d https:\/\/education.nationalgeographic.org\/resource\/confucianism\/.<\/h5>
[166] NGS, \u201cConfucianism,\u201d https:\/\/education.nationalgeographic.org\/resource\/confucianism\/.<\/h5>
[167] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 150.<\/h5>
[168] Budding Buddhist, \u201cSimplicity in Buddhism,\u201d last modified January 30, 2023, https:\/\/buddingbuddhist.com\/simplicity-buddhism\/<\/a>.<\/h5>
[169] BBC, \u201cReligions: Meditation,\u201d last modified November 24, 2009. https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/religion\/religions\/buddhism\/customs\/meditation_1.shtml<\/a>.<\/h5>
[170] BBC, \u201cMeditation,\u201d https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/religion\/religions\/buddhism\/customs\/meditation_1.shtml<\/a>.<\/h5>
[171] Jacob and Bass, Buddha Mind<\/em>, 215-216.<\/h5>
[172] Jacob and Bass, Buddha Mind<\/em>, 216.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKorean Women and Feminism<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Spirituality: Performance as Meditation  Kimsooja\u2019s art is filled with ties to the spiritual world. Performance became an actual practice of meditation for her. In an interview with Mary Jane Jacob between 2001 and 2003, Kimsooja states that the \u201cmost important thing to arise out of these performances is (my) own experience of self and awakeness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-306","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":304,"date":"2023-04-24T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=304"},"modified":"2023-04-24T16:35:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T20:35:25","slug":"korean-women-and-feminism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/korean-women-and-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean Women and Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Korean Women and Feminism<\/strong><\/h1>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Kimsooja\u2019s identity as a Korean woman is undeniably crucial to her art. She grew up in a conservative society dominated by Confucianism. In traditional Korean society, women were mostly confined to the home. Women were required to learn Confucian virtues at a young age. These virtues of endurance and subordination would prepare them for their futures as mothers and wives. They were primarily denied the opportunity to participate in events or activities outside their homes. In the late 1940s came national liberation, but also release for Korean women. Previously under colonial rule by the Japanese, a Western democratic system developed in Korea that gave the population, especially women, greater freedom, and opportunities. Although the 50s brought many significant changes for women in Korea, the 1960s and the stress of economic growth in an industrial society proved to backpedal, with the exploitation of young and unmarried women by low wages. The conditions of employment were inferior to those of men. However, the importance of education increased, and Kimsooja benefited from it.[154]<\/p>

Born in 1957, Kimsooja would have experienced all these pivotal stages for post-war Korean women as adolescents.[155] By the mid-1970s, Kimsooja was in her late teens and still receiving an education in Seoul, a metropolitan city where women\u2019s studies programs were introduced to universities. Women\u2019s groups were created all over Korea, covering diverse fields, attending international conferences, organizing assemblies, passing laws, and fighting for equal and improved rights. By the 1980s, feminism began to advance into the arts, with women artists, such as Kimsooja, exploring the reality of oppressed women.[156] Although Korea has achieved notable economic growth during the past four decades, the progress in improving the status of women has come to a standstill and is much less impressive. Confucian social rules, such as sexual discrimination against women, dominated every aspect of women\u2019s lives until 1948, when the Republic of Korea was created. Discrimination in most fields, such as social and economic, has mostly lessened, but the country and its treatment of women was certainly not fixed. In 1996, the number of women in policy-making positions was still minimal, and in 2009, the unemployment rate of women in higher academic careers was high. Women still worked lower-wage jobs and were subject to wage or employment discrimination. It is mainly because of the stereotyped and insistent concepts based on Confucianism and the traditional sex roles that came along with it.[157] It is unsurprising that Needle Woman<\/em> is a critique of women in society going unnoticed, as they did in Korea for centuries. The woman herself is woven into whichever culture she stands in. She forms the material and the fabric’s structure but is overlooked. She blends in and isn\u2019t regarded as anything more than a woman in a simple dress standing on a road, not contributing to society. She both sews together and breaks the social fabric.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Korean women artists of Kimsooja\u2019s generation were very protective of the female body. The Needle Woman<\/em>interprets her choice of presence to the Korean society that she grew up with. Kimsooja actively uses her own body more powerfully and physically. She transforms her body into an icon by concealing her identity (not revealing her face and wearing a simple robe). She detaches her being from the physical body and makes the body a void icon, or a portal. This also allows her viewers, whoever and of whichever gender identity they may be, to step into her own body and see what she is seeing, but it also protects her privacy. Her body is still her body because her identity is protected. She complicates the layers of interpretation and gaze by protecting her identity. Although she does not act to invite strangers touching her or physically interact with her, I would say this is a risk she takes being exposed to the outdoors in a very public setting. She puts herself and her body in the most vulnerable place she can: the middle of the street in a foreign and potentially dangerous city, and as a woman most of all. This speaks to the medium of performance and endurance art, as discussed previously. Progressive women artists used their bodies to perform their art. The bodily resistance required to perform such work is evidence enough of the feminist values of the Needle Woman<\/em>.<\/p>

\u00a0The endurance of gaze was paramount to completing this work, as well as the endurance of the body itself.Endurance art focuses on hardship, pain, and the passage of time. However, even after long deliberation about the inclusion of long durational performances and the creation of its definition, \u201cEndurance Art\u201d has never been a movement. Although Kimsooja\u2019s Needle Woman<\/em> requires a certain level of endurance, the solitude, and exhaustion of durational pieces, such as Tehching Hsieh\u2019s One Year Performance,<\/em> where he sat in a cage for a year, is more fitting to this category.[158] We might refer to Kimsooja\u2019s Needle Woman as endurance art because of the more metaphorical meaning of the endurance of gaze.<\/p>

Drawing connections between Kimsooja\u2019s performance and other female artists performances of the late twentieth century is valuable for comparison. Needle Woman <\/em>can be compared to Yoko Ono\u2019s performance Cut Piece<\/em> from 1964 (Fig. 32) or Marina Abramovic\u2019s Rhythm 0<\/em> from 1974 (Fig. 33). Where Ono and Abramovic both either stand or sit and ask the audience to interact with how little or much they want with the body in front of them, Kimsooja is much more subtle. Ono and Abramovic objectify their bodies completely for their performances. They are the object, especially Abramovic.[159] Kimsooja detaches her being, avoids giving herself up completely. She uses only the language of her silent and unidentifiable body to convey her message. She willingly gives no scissors, objects, or cameras to her audience. But in some ways, she\u2019s in a much less controlled environment. There is greater uncertainty about Kimsooja\u2019s performance because it is completely exposed to public. Ono and Abramovic were within the security of art institutions, indoors, and surrounded by participants who were aware of the performance. They were also invited to participate in the performance in different ways. There were no instructions sent out to the greater Tokyo metropolitan area explaining the woman standing in the middle of one of their streets that day. Kimsooja was exposed entirely and risked the performance at her own devices, but she still protects herself. This is the protection and strength of her generation as a Korean woman and artist. Kimsooja\u2019s work is different from these artists\u2019 works by nature. Ono and Abramovic engaged with the participating audience with their own body, but Kimsooja seems to play a leading role, asking the audience to become her, to see what she sees. The point is no longer a test of human nature but something else.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 32. Yoko Ono, Cut Piece 1964\/65 Performed by the artist as part of NEW WORKS OF YOKO ONO Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City. Photo: Minoru Niizuma<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 32. Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0 1974 Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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[154] Young-Joo Paik, \u201cWomen’s Development and Information on Women in Korea,\u201d Seoul: Korean Women\u2019s Development Institute (1998).<\/h5>
[155] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 70.<\/h5>
[156] Paik, \u201cWomen’s Development.\u201d<\/h5>
[157] Paik, \u201cWomen\u2019s Development.\u201d<\/h5>
[158] Lara Shalson, Performing Endurance: Art and Politics since 1960<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2018) 3, 117.<\/h5>
[159] Shalson, Performing Endurance<\/em>, 68.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNeedle Woman<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpirituality: Performance as Meditation<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Korean Women and Feminism             Kimsooja\u2019s identity as a Korean woman is undeniably crucial to her art. She grew up in a conservative society dominated by Confucianism. In traditional Korean society, women were mostly confined to the home. Women were required to learn Confucian virtues at a young age. These virtues of endurance and subordination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-304","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":300,"date":"2023-04-24T14:22:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=300"},"modified":"2023-04-24T15:08:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T19:08:52","slug":"views-of-a-korean-woman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/views-of-a-korean-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Views of a \u201cKorean\u201d \u201cWoman\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Views of a \u201cKorean\u201d \u201cWoman\u201d<\/strong><\/h1>

\u201cKorean\u201d<\/p>

Kimsooja\u2019s identity as a Korean woman artist is often what defines her. The existing scholarship surrounding Kimsooja addresses her Korean identity, comparing her to other Korean woman artists and examining how this identity affects her art, both the creation and interpretation of it. As a result, there is a standard formula for analyzing her work that begins with phrases like \u201cagainst the backdrop of her experiences as a Korean\u2026\u201d and continues with an explanation.[124] Esther Kho focuses on Kimsooja\u2019s relationship with her family, her tradition, and Korea in general, exploring how her work experiences differed based on specific audiences. Kho\u2019s study puts Kimsooja in line with two other Korean artists to explore the meanings and qualities of three contemporary Korean border-crossing artists.[125] Her identity, as both a Korean and a woman is used together in many pieces of scholarship, such as Jooeun Lee\u2019s \u201cSooja Kim\u2019s Wrapping Cloth: The Aesthetics of Paradox,\u201d to show how she is breaking the traditional Korean woman\u2019s role in society. Specifically, her \u201cbottari\u201d fabric works are linked to the \u201cuniquely feminine lyric and tactile sensitivity\u201d that sewing and textiles typically represent.[126] At the same time, in the same argument, the fabric is representative or interpreted as \u201cthe destiny of Koreans who must carry the past of their people wrapped inside them wherever they go.\u201d[127] Her fabric works are inherently feminist and Korean at the same time.<\/p>

In terms of her Korean identity, much like Mori\u2019s Japanese identity, scholars focus on how she mixes and remixes cultures in her art, establishing a more universal or globalized theme.[128] Kimsooja changed her name from two words, \u201cKim Sooja,\u201d to one, \u201cKimsooja,\u201d\u201d because without a space, the name provides few hints of her marital status, nationality, family origin, or religious affiliation. In America, she explained, women took their husbands\u2019 names when they married. Combining her first and family names, she erased the differences or boundaries between marital status and nationality. She rejected the social pressure in society of what it meant to be a woman, what it meant to be married or not, and what it meant to take a particular name.[129] In doing so, she also rejected her Korean identity and being solely identified based on that. Scholars describe the way she uses all these \u201cingredients,\u201d such as the binaries of religion versus tradition, contemporary versus historical, and East versus West, in her art to create this effect. These dualities or binaries, as listed above, are embraced by a Buddhist-derived stance and resonate in Buddhist practice. Many contemporary Asian artists play with dualities throughout their art, but here we emphasize the Buddhist practice because Kimsooja incorporates Buddhism and spirituality into so much of her art.<\/p>

\u201cWoman\u201d<\/p>

The other label on Kimsooja\u2019s art is her gender. Although Kimsooja denies being a feminist or a nationalist, both categories stick to her in scholarship. The scholars interested in the feminist aspects of Kimsooja are more concerned with her other pieces that incorporate materials like cloth and textiles and the traditions of sewing among Korean women, explicitly the use of textiles with femininity and putting that in the same vein as many Western feminist works.[130] Jooeun Lee attempts to establish a connection between Korean feminism and Western feminism, which I will also examine in the next sections. The brunt of scholarship on Asian women artists like Kimsooja is differentiating between their form of feminism and how they incorporate it versus Europe or contemporary American feminism. The scholarship on Kimsooja and feminism can be applied to Needle Woman<\/em> because of the ideas of making the private non-private, leaving home, and always keeping her back to us, not allowing anyone to gaze upon her face.[131] Like Jooeun argues, Kimsooja\u2019s works aren\u2019t just feminist for their materials but for the way she uses those materials. Although the Needle Woman does not involve fabric, sewing, or other forms of material expression associated with feminism, it stands it\u2019s ground as a highlight of her entire oeuvre. This scholarship helps advance my investigation into the Needle Woman<\/em> as a performance piece and how she uses her body critically.<\/p>

\u201cSpiritual\u201d + \u201cPerformance\/Endurance Art\u201d<\/p>

The final group of scholarship on Kimsooja explores ideas of spirituality. Thierry Raspail, Jean-Hubert Martin, and Bernard Fibicher touch upon the spiritual journey and the human condition that Kimsooja incorporates into her work, especially the Needle Woman<\/em>. Her body and her surroundings, or nature in some instances, are bound to one another and become one. The other focus of scholarship on Kimsooja is on the categorization of the Needle Woman<\/em> as endurance art, for example, how she stands in the middle of a crowd for long periods without moving. Performance art is included under this subheading; however, Kimsooja\u2019s art as a performance is only mentioned in passing as a simple categorizing term, perhaps the result of performance art a relatively new genre in contemporary Asian art.. Mixed with the fact that Kimsooja is an Asian woman, the performance art category makes her even more niche because of its relatively newness. A perplexing aspect of the Needle Woman<\/em> series is that it isn\u2019t written about very much, but in the existing scholarship, ideas about Kimsooja, feminism, nationality, identity, and spirituality are all present to make connections, and they are all visible in this series.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[124] Curiger, Bice, and Christoph Heinrich,\u00a0Hypermental: Rampant Reality, 1950-2000: from Salvador Dali to Jeff Koons,<\/em> Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000: 66.<\/h5>
[125] Kho, \u201cBorder Crossing,\u201d 51.<\/h5>
[126] Jooeun Lee, \u201cSooja Kim\u2019s Wrapping Cloth: The Aesthetics of Paradox,\u201d Women\u2019s Art Journal <\/em>36, no. 1 (2015): 19.<\/h5>
[127] Lee, \u201cSooja Kim\u2019s Wrapping Cloth,\u201d 19.<\/h5>
[128] Lily Wei, \u201cKim Sooja.\u201d Art Magazine Collection Archive<\/em> 103, no. 4 (2004): 120. She both proclaims and denies local spirit, embodying the complexity of globalization. Esther Kho, \u201cKorean Border-Crossing Artists in the New York Artworld: An Examination of The Artistic, Personal and Social Identities of Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang,\u201d PhD diss., The Florida State University, 2006.<\/h5>
[129] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 158.<\/h5>
[130] Lee, \u201cSooja Kim\u2019s Wrapping Cloth,\u201d: 19.<\/h5>
[131] Lee, \u201cSooja Kim\u2019s Wrapping Cloth,\u201d: 22.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Views of a \u201cKorean\u201d \u201cWoman\u201d \u201cKorean\u201d Kimsooja\u2019s identity as a Korean woman artist is often what defines her. The existing scholarship surrounding Kimsooja addresses her Korean identity, comparing her to other Korean woman artists and examining how this identity affects her art, both the creation and interpretation of it. As a result, there is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-300","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":253,"date":"2023-03-30T21:21:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T21:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=253"},"modified":"2023-05-07T22:07:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T02:07:49","slug":"mariko-mori-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/mariko-mori-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariko Mori"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Mariko Mori<\/strong><\/h2>

Be it through vast landscapes dabbled with womb-like clouds or\u00a0an alien serving tea, Mariko Mori serves us\u00a0otherworldly art that\u00a0<\/span>presents her as a woman claiming subjectivity in the spiritual and material world.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cPure Land\u201d is a scene of postmodern serenity (Fig.1 – See Here<\/a>). <\/span>\u00a0<\/em>A goddess, played by the artist, floats above the still water of the dead sea. Robots with musical instruments hover around her.\u00a0<\/span>\"\"The sky and water share a swath of pinks, oranges, and yellows, only to be separated by a line on the horizon. This image represents the natural element of Earth, one of the four elements of matter, among water, air, and fire, that the artist Mariko Mori visualizes in her series <\/span>The Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>, drawing inspiration from technology, nature, and their intersection. However, as the female deity and the series title suggest, neither set of intersections coincide in <\/span>Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>: spirituality and feminism. Through a close reading of the complex web of religion-inspired motifs and otherworldly settings Mori created, this chapter examines how she utilized Buddhism and Shintoism, two East Asian religions that many Japanese women piously practice, to comment on the ongoing treatment and exploitative labor of women in Japan. Mori\u2019s concern about the Japanese society at large is shown throughout her entire career; however, this capstone section focuses on the layering of spiritual and feminist aspects intersecting in <\/span>Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>. This section begins with a biography of Mori, emphasizing the importance of science and art to her formative years. The next section expands to the feminist movement in Japan and around the world, which is crucial to understanding Mori\u2019s art, the characters she creates, and the personas she takes on. It lays the groundwork for a theoretical discussion of spirituality and contextualizes the late twentieth-century art world within which Mori experimented through staging strategic performance to assert and at times question female subjectivity. My close reading of Mori\u2019s <\/span>Esoteric <\/em>Cosmos <\/em>shows how Mori mingled feminism and spirituality to reshape the traditional identity and role of the Japanese woman. Finally, the spiritual aspects of Mori\u2019s work are proven to be not entirely traditional, as she did not simply recreate Buddhist images in her work. Although not in the strictest reading of Esoteric Buddhism, Mori combined traditional and novel aspects of spirituality for the staging and performance of Esoteric Cosmos.<\/span><\/p>

New Ideas: Growing Up <\/strong><\/h2>

Mariko Mori was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan. Mori was the daughter of a scholar in Northern Renaissance art, and an inventor and \u201cincubator of new ideas,\u201d according to the artist herself.[8]<\/sup> At only eighteen months old in 1968, Mori moved to Philadelphia because her father, Kei Mori, was a visiting scholar at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During their two-year stay in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Mori\u2019s mother, Yoko Arisawa went to graduate school at Bryn Mawr to further her studies in North Renaissance art. By \u201cenjoying the precious experience of creative international interaction with children who came from various countries,\u201d Mori had an early exposure to the global world.[9]<\/sup> Her parents\u2019 professions and this experience undoubtedly played a role in her creative start and artistic interests. She returned to Japan in 1970 with her parents and her sister, Asuka Mori, was born three years later.[10]<\/p>

Mori started her schooling in the creative field at Tokyo\u2019s Bunka Fashion College (Bunka Fukus\u014d Gakuin). She also worked as a model during her time at fashion school. Her study of fashion and her career in modeling, as you can see later in this thesis, play a significant role, starting with her early works and throughout her Esoteric Cosmos. Her interest in fashion and costumes are evident in how she dresses her characters and prompts her first exploration of the connection between body, clothing, and identity. In 1988, Mori went to London to study art at the Byam Shaw School of Art and later the Chelsea College of Art and Design. Mori discovered a whole world of art that she had been missing in Japan. The London art world, she found, was the best outlet for self-expression. After studying painting and fashion in the UK, Mori dove into performance-based photographs.[11]<\/sup> According to scholar Allison Holland, it was the European influence and the political, economic, and social climate of the cosmopolitan city of London that challenged Mori\u2019s understanding of \u201cself and nation, ethnicity and gender.\u201d[12]<\/sup> She would have been aware of the political instability and racial tension in London throughout the 80s and the homogenous \u201cBritishness\u201d that was being challenged.[13] The subcultures of fashion and art that Mori encountered during her time in London allowed her to find new forms of creative expression. Having modeled and studied fashion in Tokyo previously, her time in London exploring the subcultures of art, fashion, and music allowed Mori to create and use transnational design tropes. Additionally, her time at Chelsea produced an understanding of identity based on the mass media constructs of model, celebrity, and artist. Given Mori\u2019s background, it is clear how the lines between self, nation, ethnicity, and gender become blurred, but her identity as a Japanese woman was never lost.[14]<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/p>

In 1992, Mori moved to New York City, where she keeps a studio to this day. Mori enrolled in the prestigious yearlong Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The cultural milieu in New York was more boundless, somewhere Mori could feel free of her Japanese societal norms. While she familiarized herself with critical theory and diverse artistic practices in the ISP, New York positioned her at the center of the global art market and offered her the opportunity to launch a career, such as establishing representation with prominent galleries like Jeffrey Deitch in New York and Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris.<\/p>

Mori primarily works in performance video, digitized and commercially produced\u00a0<\/span>photos,\u00a0<\/span>3D video installations, and plays with \u201cpseudo-scientific objects,\u201d such as an invention of her fathers called the Himawari (Japanese for \u201csunflower\u201d) (Fig. 2). This solar transmitting device created by her father was just one example of the help she received from the international team of engineers with which she worked closely.<\/span>[15]<\/sup> She keeps studios in both New York and Tokyo, thus working in more than one significant global art community.<\/span>[16]<\/sup><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 2. Dr. Kei Mori, Himawari Sun lighting\n1978. Courtesy of Genesis Park<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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[8]<\/sup> Cindi Di Marzo, \u201cA Traveler in Time, from Standing Stones to the Distant Stars: An interview with Mariko Mori,\u201d Studio International, 2013, https:\/\/www.studiointernational.com\/index.php\/interview-with-mariko-mori<\/a>. Dominic Molon, \u201cDirectors Forward,\u201d in Mariko Mori (<\/em>Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998).<\/h5>
[9]<\/sup> Lawrence R. Klein, Symposium in Memory of Kei Mori: Studies in Economic Dynamics<\/em> (University of Pennsylvania, 1995), XX.<\/h5>
[10] Klein, Kei Mori<\/em>, XX.<\/h5>
[11]<\/sup> Miwako Tezuka, Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko <\/em>(New York: Japan Society, 2013), 8.<\/h5>
[12]<\/sup> Allison Holland, \u201cMori Mariko and the Art of Global Connectedness,\u201d Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific<\/em>, no. 23 (2009): 3.<\/h5>
[13] Holland, \u201cGlobal Connectedness,\u201d 4. Mori\u2019s piece \u201cProud to be British\u201d from 1992 would address this knowledge and is reflective of her time in the UK, revealing that \u201cher identity was determined by global, national, communal and familial hegemonies.\u201d<\/h5>
[14] Holland, \u201cGlobal Connectedness,\u201d 3.<\/h5>
[15]<\/sup> Jieun Rhee, \u201cFrom Goddess to Cyborg: Mariko Mori and Lee Bul,\u201d N. Paradoxa<\/em>, no. 14 (2004): 6.<\/h5>
[16]<\/sup> Holland, \u201cGlobal Connectedness,\u201d 13.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIntroduction<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEarly Engagement with Feminism<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mariko Mori Be it through vast landscapes dabbled with womb-like clouds or an alien serving tea, Mariko Mori serves us otherworldly art that presents her as a woman claiming subjectivity in the spiritual and material world. \u201cPure Land\u201d is a scene of postmodern serenity (Fig.1 – See Here).  A goddess, played by the artist, floats above the still water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-253","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":115,"date":"2022-09-27T18:59:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T18:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=115"},"modified":"2026-03-05T13:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:11:19","slug":"home-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soft and Strong:
\nA Digital Capstone by Caroline Mackin<\/h2>\n

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Soft and Strong: A Digital Capstone by Caroline Mackin ENTER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-115","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":76,"date":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=76"},"modified":"2023-04-15T21:21:01","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T01:21:01","slug":"ties-to-spirituality-and-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/ties-to-spirituality-and-buddhism\/","title":{"rendered":"Ties to Spirituality and Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Ties to Spirituality and Buddhism<\/strong><\/h2>

From the dozens of Buddhist references that can be seen in the Esoteric Cosmos alone, one can see that Mori intentionally inserts spirituality into her work. While it is unclear whether Mori grew up in an overtly Buddhist or religious household, she once stated that she is not a Buddhist monk and seeks a different kind of enlightenment. Her motivation was in seeking enlightenment as a human being and to be spiritually aware of certain things, such as her identity.[93]<\/sup> This certainly doesn\u2019t mean she needs to master an understanding or awareness of herself, but it indicates an ongoing journey of finding oneself and one\u2019s identity as a human being. The elements and themes of spirituality were important to Mori\u2019s growth and an ode to her nation, especially since she left Japan for a long period of time. However, they still serve as a comment on the society she left behind. Although she did return to Tokyo, much of her life and education took place way from the society she was born in. She recalls her roots throughout her work. Distancing herself from Japan likely allowed her to see elements of Japanese culture even clearer than if she had stayed. She takes from both Shinto and Buddhist elements throughout her oeuvre.[94]<\/sup> Mori explores both traditional Japanese ideas and spiritual\/Buddhist traditions but turns them into something otherworldly and bizarre. She\u2019s also setting them into places or landscapes that are more familiar to a non-Buddhist or someone who doesn\u2019t live in Japan. This goes back to the familiarity that Mori incorporates in her art to be able to connect with her audience. This geographical dislocation also allows for a kind of distance between herself and the viewer. The mix of futuristic avatars and icons of Japan\u2019s historical and religious past highlights Mori\u2019s concern about the differences between science and spirituality, traditional culture, and technology.<\/p>

Mori stated in an interview in 2001 with Kunie Sugiura that she left Japan to seek freedom to express herself, saying that \u201cJapan is a unified society which does not allow for individualism. It was difficult for me (Mori). In Japan, people try not to behave outside of common standards. You are constantly reminded not to step out of line. (I) did not accept that.\u201d[95]<\/sup> She was compelled to escape, and she did. However, the spiritual elements and Japanese tradition are her way of holding onto her Japanese identity and critiquing it. Britain was the beginning of her studies outside of Japan, opening her up to the subcultures of the UK. It was in this time that Mori started to understand self, nation, ethnicity, and gender, exploring the individualism that Japan did not allow for her to explore freely. The boundlessness that was New York allowed her to position herself at the center of the global art market and further explore these understandings.<\/p>

Mori used her Japanese identity to her advantage in America. Japanese artists born after WWII were burdened with the pressure of tradition \u201cin a homogeneous Japanese society.\u201d[96]<\/sup> She was respected and accepted internationally and drew the attention of the public to the abstract and spiritual side of Japanese culture, rather than the more well-known manga or anime side. Although she makes many references to cosplay, a phenomenon of Japanese pop culture where one dresses up like a character from manga, anime or computer games, the Esoteric Cosmos<\/em> references religious traditions.[97]<\/sup> The metaphysical and philosophical elements of Japanese culture can be seen in each of the Esoteric Cosmos, with Buddhist ideas of life cycles, rituals, tranquility, balance of the body and soul, Enlightenment, and Nirvana.[98]<\/sup> As much as the cyborgs and fantastical elements of popular culture catch the eyes of viewers, so do the spiritual elements and traditional matters unfamiliar to most Western viewers. Mori sought to connect viewers not with ancient ideas but with their own contemporary lives through technology. In other words, Pure Land<\/em> is a futuristic rendition of Buddhist tradition that surpasses the boundaries of time, place, and ethnicity. Although the hovering rainbow alien musicians are drawn from manga, all other elements are centered on nature, tranquility, and transcendence; all elements of Pure Land Buddhism and the path to the Pure Land. The \u201cEsoteric Cosmos\u201d speaks to the relevance of this tradition within Japanese culture and shows how Mori is deeply rooted in her Japanese identity, and not just to attract American or British views but to stay connected to her culture.[99]<\/sup><\/p>

Mori\u2019s use of her own body in many of her works invites a feminist reading as discussed in the introduction to this thesis. The scholarship and theory surrounding Cindy Sherman and role-playing are clearly connected to Mori and the feminist readings of her works. Although individuality was vital to Mori, it was rejected by a unified Japanese society that had strict and deep-rooted ideas about how women should act in society. In some instances, she presents a sexualized body that can be subject to the male gaze, but in others, she constantly references her Japanese identity, inviting viewers to almost \u201cOrientalize\u201d it, like they did at the 1997 Biennale, placing her in a pavilion amongst all-white Nordic artists.[100] This framed Mori as the \u201cOriental\u201d and established a clear distinction between \u201cus\u201d (Nordic artists), and \u201cthem\u201d (Japanese artist Mori).[101] In the Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>, and Pure Land<\/em> in particular, she uses her body and performance to explore identity and existence. The pinks, oranges and yellows of the Pure Land<\/em> oasis indicate the oozing feminine energy, but as previously stated, it\u2019s more than a cosplay fantasy world.<\/p>

The cultural climate of Japan in the mid-1990s can contextualize the sexual, social, and economic implications of Mori\u2019s works during this time. Cultural values shifted in Japan following World War II, and a reluctant acceptance of the American way became an imitation and worship of American culture. As scholar Jonathan Wallis notes, it\u2019s important to address the concern of feminism associated with late-twentieth-century Japanese society since Mori is a hybrid of foreign and native influences.[102]<\/sup> Mori\u2019s work undoubtedly exposes layers of meaning that are \u201cembedded in the discourses of late-twentieth-century Japanese culture: This oppression, exploitation, and complication of women at the time in Japan can be linked to the complex cultural climate of Japan in both the real and virtual worlds, and the exploitation of the entertainment industry in sexualizing and complicating the relationship of woman as image in mass culture within urban Japan.\u201d[103]<\/sup> the mid-90s.[104]<\/sup> However, I feel like Pure Land<\/em> and the Esoteric Cosmos series avoids this list, unlike any of her other series of works. Rather than portraying herself as a sexy cyborg or outwardly emphasizing female beauty, Pure Land<\/em> works to create an experience that\u2019s free from female exploitation.<\/p>

Mori explains that people misread her work, thinking she creates a fantasy world to escape reality, but really, she believed that the synthetic world she created had its own reality and consciousness. In a 1998 interview with Kathryn Hixson for the New Art Examiner<\/em>, Mori states that \u201cit\u2019s what you experience, what you feel, what you dream.\u201d[105]<\/sup>And much of it was rooted in reality; in spiritual tradition. Because of Mori\u2019s Japanese identity, she believes that both men and women have defined gender roles. However, in Pure Land<\/em>, I would argue that Mori removes any role that she was supposed to play, like Japanese culture expects of women, and instead soars towards the Pure Land<\/em>. Mori sees passivity as powerful because you only receive something by being soft and \u201clistening,\u201d as defined by my previous term: \u201csoft and strong.\u201d Although this sounds like the opposite of a feminist reading, her self-identity connects to her self-deification in Pure Land<\/em> by means of role-play and self-portraiture.<\/p>

Continuing a Feminist Reading of Pure Land<\/strong><\/h2>

Within this feminist reading, Mori\u2019s work is not only about self-identity. Yuhang Li\u2019s book Becoming Guanyin<\/em>tells the story of Buddhist tradition and the Bodhisattva. The book doesn\u2019t explicitly mention Mori, but a connection can be drawn from Mori\u2019s Pure Land<\/em> and the self-deification she incorporates into the piece, to Li\u2019s book and the story within it. Featuring herself in each element of the Esoteric Cosmos series makes an excellent case study on self-portraiture and self-reflection. Li\u2019s research on women\u2019s embodiment of self-identity and self-deification is paramount in understanding Mori\u2019s Pure Land<\/em> and her place within it. Guanyin first and foremost asks what Buddhist laywomen in late imperial China did to establish a connection \u201cwith the subject of their devotion,\u201d Guanyin, the bodhisattva.[106]<\/sup> Women connected to this Buddhist deity by reproducing her image by using parts of their bodies, female skills, and performance. Worshippers of Guanyin connected with her through processes of object-, self-, and world making.[107]<\/sup><\/p>

Guanyin\u2019s sex change also complicated the gender identities of her believers and established \u201ca new framework for religious practice whereby the production of the devotee\u2019s identity was interwoven with the ideologies and material practices that accompanies the reproduction of gender hierarchy.\u201d[108]<\/sup> Mori\u2019s female identity was woven into her art production and practice, but also complicated this relationship and led to the mimicking of Guanyin through performance.[109]<\/sup> Yuhang argues that, \u201calthough women\u2019s lives were shaped by Confucian patriarchal expectations, Buddhism provides a space in which women could express themselves in alternative ways.\u201d[110]<\/sup> This will be further analyzed in a large portion of my study in the next chapter on Kimsooja, examining the differences in spirituality present in each artist\u2019s work.<\/p>

Guanyin\u2019s manifestations ranged from the celestial world to the secular world, from human to divine beings, and from male to female. Much like Guanyin, Mori manifests her identity into many different beings through all her work. Specific to the Esoteric Cosmos, Mori transforms herself into \u201croles that encompass all hierarchical and gender differences,\u201d which Yuhang uses to describe Guanyin.[111]<\/sup> Like the natural elements and the path to enlightenment, the Esoteric Cosmos takes a long and gradual process, just as Guanyin\u2019s feminization does.[112]<\/sup> Appearing as a Bodhisattva or Guanyin, while also keeping identifiers of herself, Mori\u2019s ability to get to the Pure Land <\/em>is more tangible. In Pure Land Buddhism, the female body cannot be reborn in the Pure Land; therefore Mori\u2019s self-deification as a Bodhisattva only makes sense.<\/p>

\u00a0The line between feminist and spiritual readings in the work of Mariko Mori becomes quite blurry. Because spirituality has been a critical element in East Asian civilizations for centuries, religions explored in this thesis, such as Confucianism and Buddhism, have been significant to women and the building of their identities. They provided a window to the spiritual and material world that was largely beyond their reach under the surveillance and control of the Confucian patriarchy especially, and of post-war Japan. Consequently, religious art was one of the few genres wherein women artists thrived. It is through religion and understanding identity together that Mori reaches the Pure Land<\/em>. Mori\u2019s self-deification is a means of liberation.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[93]<\/sup> Lemons, \u201cAs She Wishes.\u201d<\/h5>
[94]<\/sup> Elisabetta Porcu, Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture<\/em> (Leiden, Brill, 2008), 178.<\/h5>
[95]<\/sup> Jungwhe Moon, \u201cAmerican Perception of Japanese Culture in Takashi Murakami and Mariko Mori\u2019s Art: A Study of Aesthetics of Murakami and Mori\u2019s Artwork\u201d,\u201d (Master of Arts, Georgetown University, 2003), 46. Kunie Sugiura interview with Mariko Mori, Journal of Contemporary Art, June 5, 2001, 1,<\/h5>
http:\/\/www.jca-online.com\/mori.html<\/a>.<\/h5>
[96]<\/sup> Moon, \u201cAmerican Perception,\u201d 46.<\/h5>
[97]<\/sup> Porcu, Pure Land, <\/em>178-179. Each Esoteric Cosmo represents a stage of the Buddhist path: conception, ascetic practice, enlightenment, and nirvana. Porcu, Pure Land<\/em>, 179.<\/h5>
[98]<\/sup> Moon, \u201cAmerican Perception,\u201d 47.<\/h5>
[99]<\/sup> Porcu, Pure Land, <\/em>181.<\/h5>
[100] Gunhild Borggreen, \u201cCultural Cliche\u0301s in Contemporary Art: The Reception of Mori Mariko\u2019s Work,\u201d Review of Japanese Culture and Society<\/em> 15, (2003): 89. Curator of the 1997 Venice Benniale was Germano Celant according to Wikipedia.<\/h5>
[101] Borggreen, \u201cCliches,\u201d 89.<\/h5>
[102]<\/sup> Wallis, \u201cParadox,\u201d 4.<\/h5>
[103]<\/sup> Wallis, \u201cParadox,\u201d 4.<\/h5>
[104]<\/sup> Wallis, \u201cParadox,\u201d 4.<\/h5>
[105]<\/sup> Wallis, \u201cParadox,\u201d 5. Quoted in Kathryn Hixson, \u201cFuture perfect: an interview with Mariko Mori,\u201d New Art Examiner <\/em>(December 1998\/January 1999): 45.<\/h5>
[106]<\/sup> Yuhang Li, Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China<\/em> (New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2020), 1.<\/h5>
[107]<\/sup> Li, Becoming Guanyin<\/em>, 2.<\/h5>
[108]<\/sup> Li, Becoming Guanyin<\/em>, 2.<\/h5>
[109]<\/sup> Li, Becoming Guanyin<\/em>, 2.<\/h5>
[110]<\/sup> Li, Becoming Guanyin<\/em>, 3.<\/h5>
[111]<\/sup> Li, Becoming Guanyin<\/em>, 4.<\/h5>
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Ties to Spirituality and Buddhism From the dozens of Buddhist references that can be seen in the Esoteric Cosmos alone, one can see that Mori intentionally inserts spirituality into her work. While it is unclear whether Mori grew up in an overtly Buddhist or religious household, she once stated that she is not a Buddhist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-76","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":75,"date":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=75"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:45:11","slug":"needle-woman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/needle-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Needle Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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The Needle Woman<\/em><\/strong><\/h1>

The Needle Woman series comprises eight silent videos that each lasts six minutes and thirty-three seconds. There is no known reason behind the exact length, but the concepts of time and the passing of it were certainly crucial to Kimsooja. They each loop continuously and are displayed on screens next to each other on the walls of a dark room.[132] Keiji Nakamura explains that in the Needle Woman<\/em>, \u201cby synchronizing with natural time, she seems to have grasped her own inner time. So that, ultimately, viewer time also merges with her take on cosmic time.\u201d[133] The continuity of a looped video is comparable to the continuity of life and death, and how important that is in Kimsooja\u2019s work focusing on a meditative state. The audience of any of the films would be watching this, not knowing exactly when it ends and restarts. As for the time Kimsooja stood in each city, she stated in an interview with Mary Jane Jacob in 2003 that each performance lasted twenty-five to thirty minutes.[134] The Needle Woman performance was first exhibited at a solo exhibition at PS1 in 2001. The eight videos were projected simultaneously on the four walls of a room. The billboard-size format allowed the viewers to participate and immerse themselves in the video actively. This exhibition created a face-to-face exhibition, with a life-size Kimsooja standing before each visitor (Fig. 29.5).[135] The video to the right is a compilation of Kimsooja’s Needle Woman series.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 29.5. Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, Exhibition View 2001. PS1 MoMA<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The eight cities that this series highlights are Delhi (India), Lagos (Nigeria), Tokyo (Japan), Mexico City (Mexico), New York (U.S.A.), London (England), Shanghai (China), and Cairo (Egypt).[136] In 2005, the Needle Woman\u00a0<\/em>continued in new cities, Patan (Nepal), Jerusalem (Israel), Sana\u2019a (Yemen), Havana (Cuba), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), N\u2019Djamena (Chad), with six new video performances. She chooses not to film a video in Korea because she wants to distance herself from her identity.[137] Kimsooja stands unmoving in the middle of each video while the city buzzes around her. Whether in India, Nigeria, Japan, Mexico, the U.S.A, England, China, or Egypt, Kimsooja sticks out like a haystack. Regardless of the bustling city and its inhabitants, Kimsooja is the anchor that holds you still. She is the centerpiece. Her dark shape and lack of movement invite you to focus solely on her or see right through her. Once we look at an unmoving object long enough, we begin to ignore it or focus on everything else around it. As the \u201cNeedle Woman,\u201d Kimsooja chooses her locations based on places where she cannot escape her otherness.[138] This comes from a place of always feeling out of place. Like Mori, Kimsooja was certainly experiencing the global world of contemporary art, However, Kimsooja didn\u2019t get to experience it at such an early age, including in her education. Her feelings of otherness were strong, and she engaged with them head-on in her art. The videos are shot from the busiest streets in the world\u2019s most populous and sometimes dangerous cities. [139] As the \u201cNeedle Woman,\u201d or the needle in the case of sewing, she weaves her persona \u201cinto the fabric of matter.\u201d[140] In every video, Kimsooja is dressed in a neutral grey shirt. A few different things can explain the reasoning for this. First and most literally, she is meant to represent a needle. Needles are typically silver\/grey. Were Kimsooja to dress in one of her woven fabric creations, the message wouldn\u2019t be the same. These woven creations can be seen in Encounter \u2013 Looking into Sewing <\/em>(Fig. 30) or Deductive Object VII<\/em> (Fig. 31), where the figure is covered in these same fabrics. In her other most famous series, Cities on the Move \u2013 2727 kilometers Bottari Truck <\/em>from 1997, you can see the same bright fabric, a swath of pink, green, gold and red, but instead of Kimsooja wearing it, she is sitting on top of it. Dark, neutral clothing isn\u2019t exclusive to Needle Woman<\/em>, often for the exact purpose of making more complex relationships in her work, setting a stark contrast between simple and bold, light, and dark. Her plain outfit is the same in A Homeless Woman<\/em> and A Beggar Woman<\/em>. The Needle Woman<\/em> and the other \u2018Woman\u2019 performances highlight Kimsooja, not the fabric she is wearing. The neutral clothing contrasts the hectic city to the perfectly still \u201cneedle,\u201d Kimsooja. The neutrality of her outfit contrasts with the constant stimuli of the city.[141] That is, the grey outfit allows Kimsooja to go unnoticed, but it also makes her stand out even more.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 30. Kimsooja, Encounter \u2013 Looking into Sewing 1998 \u2013 2011. Photo by Simon Vogel Performative sculpture and Cibachrome print 165 x 80 (diameter) cm<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 31. Kimsooja, Deductive Object VII 1996 - 2013 Digital Flex Print 102 x 75cm<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In analyzing Kimsooja\u2019s presence in the Needle Woman<\/em>, the lack of features and the figure’s simplicity make her both unrecognizable and distinctly foreign simultaneously. She attracts little attention from those around her in most cases, where hybrids are common and there are people of all origins. However, while the stimuli of the city are what would typically grab our attention, the mysterious identity of the woman at the center is even more stimulating.[142] What does her face look like? Is she making an expression on her face? Is she smiling? What are the bystanders seeing when they pass her? Are they making eye contact? Are they learning something about her identity that we, as later viewers, can\u2019t see? Therefore, Kimsooja is both protecting her identity and making herself more vulnerable with her back exposed to the viewer. She is unguarded, an easy target without her sight. However, she is protected with no signs of her identity or individuality. There is no way to objectify her body because she doesn\u2019t let us see her.[143] Her value of independence and freedom from societal pressures of being a woman and fixed stereotyping are suddenly very clear.[144]There are no female features present besides her long ponytail and no features indicating that she may be Korean. She is essentially a shell, a portal, a keyhole. Her modesty is also part of Kimsooja\u2019s Korean identity, which we will explore later in this chapter.<\/p>

The artist\u2019s back, as described by scholar Julia Zugazagoiti, allows us to pass through the work and into the cities shown to us. This illustrates the Kantian definition of the sublime: \u201cto feel an emotion through the devices the artist offers us as she opens up her own experience so that we can enter into it without risk or peril.\u201d[145] This is signaling certain kinds of bodily threats that we, the viewer, are shielded from, but that she, the figure is perhaps not. We are vicariously participating in this experience of space through her. Because of the nature of endurance or performance art, we come in much later in the life of the art. Kimsooja took on this psychological, physical, intimate, and personal form of meditation so that we, as viewers, could experience and perceive it through the keyhole that is her body.[146] But we are protected from any bodily threats that could\u2019ve come her way. Like any art, the series and videos can have as much or as little meaning to you as you let them. The viewer can imagine themselves in Kimsooja\u2019s shoes, taking her place in the city she stands in, or they can observe from afar. The Needle Woman<\/em> is for a global community, creating a very different meaning for different parts of that community depending on where you are from. If you are from a bustling metropolis, you may find it easier to enter the scene that Kimsooja records from the streets of New York City. You may understand the atmosphere and feel more comfortable or even recognize those surroundings. Of course, there are also viewers inside the videos. We can consider them as part of the art themselves or as viewers in their own right. Depending on the country in which she was filming, people reacted differently to watching Kimsooja film in the middle of their city. The series was meant to represent the interaction between self and others. Kimsooja conceived this project as \u201cinvisible sewing.\u201d[147] In a museum setting, Kimsooja becomes the mediator between the people in the video and the viewers at the museum. She invites her viewers to share her meditative experience, so people from different cultures watch and meet people like she does when she\u2019s there.[148]<\/p>

Kimsooja wanted the viewer to slow down in both settings. Either in person on the sidewalk where they see her, or from afar at the gallery where they see the recording. The passage of time and the motion of reflection are important to her. In an interview with Barbara Matilsky in 2003, Kimsooja describes her own vision for these back-facing works. She invites the viewer to share her own meditative experience. She explains, \u201cThat is why my body is facing against the viewer. Look at what I look at. I do not present my ego, my identity.\u201d She desires the viewers to \u201cwear\u201d her body. This suggests the idea of the artist as mediator \u201cto open possibilities for other people to participate in a \u2018certain awareness and awakening.\u2019\u201d[149] She looks at it as a chance for people to bring their daily life to a halt and achieve a more concentrated state of mind.[150]<\/p>

In the in-person display, the pedestrians in certain cities reacted differently to Kimsooja than in other cities. It is busy in Tokyo, a very well-developed modern city. Some people cast glances at her, smiling, wondering, or glowering. The one\u2019s that stop to look eventually pass her by after a couple of seconds. There are young people with brightly colored hair, people wearing clothes with colors that stand out compared to Kimsooja\u2019s outfit, and people who talk on their cell phones.[151] Tokyo is an example of one of the modern cities in this series. The people in Tokyo, London, and New York are characterized by their rapid and determined pace. They are unphased, scarcely noticing the artist at all. In these exceptionally modern and cosmopolitan cities, racial differences fade. The few features of her that we can see do not put her out of place. However, the Japanese would be rather familiar with this kind of religious acting in their society. Therefore, Tokyo wouldn\u2019t only be unphased by Kimsooja\u2019s performance because of the city\u2019s rate of modernization but because of their spiritual traditions and values. They may have seen something like this before.\u00a0<\/p>

On the other hand, Cairo, Delhi, Mexico, and Lagos are on the other end of the spectrum. There is an evident tension between the modern and the traditional. This makes the presence of Kimsooja uncomfortable. The individuals of these societies are more attentive to those around them, evaluating their position or rank within conventional hierarchies and social classes that are essential to their culture. The members of different social classes mix in the street and are wary of each other. While they coexist in the street, the distinctions are tangible.[152] The tension is palpable in these cities in various ways. Most notably in Delhi, India, where we have traveled back in time.Although visually, Kimsooja blends in because of her neutral and simple outfit, the city is quite exotic and her being there is not something the people of Delhi expected. Her East Asian appearance is foreign to them. Making her stand out in their community. Most people turn their heads to see her as they pass by. Although a hodgepodge of social classes, workers, women, or people riding carriage-style transportation, Kimsooja doesn\u2019t look like them, enough to become a spectacle to the community.[153] In some cases, depending on the culture, seeing a woman on the street going against the grain might be a shocking or modern sight to traditional communities.<\/p>

The Needle Woman series and how it fits into the genre of performance art is essential to how we understand Kimsooja\u2019s work. We see the temporality and ephemerality of performance art in the Needle Woman; however, the series also falls into video art and installation. Although Kimsooja did perform these scenes in which she stands in the middle of crowded streets, and that performance took the risk of uncertainty in each city and its people, she also recorded them as video art in itself. For most performance art, there\u2019s not always footage or physical proof that the performance took place. Sometimes it\u2019s a singular photograph, or sometimes it\u2019s by word of mouth. Performance art, significantly earlier on in the contemporary period, often followed the phrase \u201cyou just had to be there.\u201d There\u2019s the difficulty of performance art in scholarship and talking about something that is so under-documented and ephemeral. However, the beauty of performance art is that it disappears into the ether.<\/p>

Unlike disappearing into the ether, Kimsooja makes sure that the afterlife of her work endures. The Needle Woman is recorded by Kimsooja, based on the height of the camera being even with her height, a video camera attached to a tripod, or a person. It is in this way that Kimsooja\u2019s performance art differs from others. She is in control of the recording of her performance. Although the audience, in this case, the city in which she stands, can be unpredictable, the recording and the video are on her side. Unlike Shigeko Kubota\u2019s Vagina Painting <\/em>performance from 1965 where there were 10 viewers and one man taking photos, Kimsooja was performing and<\/em> creating art simultaneously. Where Kubota has maybe two images of her famous performance, Kimsooja has twelve 6-plus minute-long videos to work with. The dimension of ephemerality is different and not as extreme. Kimsooja also benefits from being her own camera man. She maintains control over these videos and images, adding a level of self-possession that Kubota did not have.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[132] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 134.<\/h5>
[133] Keiki Nakamura, \u201cKim Sooja\u2019s a Needle Woman,\u201d ICC, Tokyo (2000).<\/h5>
[134] Mary Jane Jacob and Jacquelynn Bass, Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art<\/em>, University of California Press, 2004: 115.<\/h5>
[135] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 30.<\/h5>
[136] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 30.<\/h5>
[137] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 157.<\/h5>
[138] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 34.<\/h5>
[139] Carol Becker, \u201cWalking, Standing, Sitting Like a Duck: Three Instances of invasive, reparative behaviour,\u201d Journal of the Performing Arts<\/em> 13, no. 3 (2008): 143.<\/h5>
[140] Becker, \u201cWalking, Standing,\u201d143.<\/h5>
[141] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 36.<\/h5>
[142] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 37.<\/h5>
[143] Unlike Mori, who easily objectifies her own body.<\/h5>
[144] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 155.<\/h5>
[145] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 30.<\/h5>
[146] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 31.<\/h5>
[147] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 149.<\/h5>
[148] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 149.<\/h5>
[149] Matilsky, \u201cKimsooja,\u201d http:\/\/www.kimsooja.com\/texts\/matilsky.html.<\/h5>
[150] Matilsky, \u201cKimsooja,\u201d http:\/\/www.kimsooja.com\/texts\/matilsky.html.<\/h5>
[151] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 136.<\/h5>
[152] Zugazagoitia, \u201cIncantation to presence,\u201d 35-37.<\/h5>
[153] Kho, \u201cBorder-Crossing,\u201d 139.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tViews of a \u201cKorean\u201d \u201cWoman\u201d<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKorean Women and Feminism<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Needle Woman The Needle Woman series comprises eight silent videos that each lasts six minutes and thirty-three seconds. There is no known reason behind the exact length, but the concepts of time and the passing of it were certainly crucial to Kimsooja. They each loop continuously and are displayed on screens next to each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-75","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":74,"date":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=74"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:04:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:04:52","slug":"pure-land","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/pure-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Pure Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Figure 1. Mariko Mori, Pure Land 1996-97. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Pure Land<\/h2>\n

The final photograph in the Esoteric Cosmos<\/em> series is \u201cPure Land,\u201d (Fig. 1) the centerpiece of this study. \u201cPure Land\u201d was created in 1996 and was later turned into a seven-minute 3D video installation called Nirvana, shown at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997.[78]<\/sup> Standing 10-by-20 feet in a glass-encased photomontage, \u201cPure Land\u201d depicts Mori front and center as a godlike figure.[79]<\/sup> Pure Land refers to a particular state of rebirth in the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation that ends in Nirvana.[80]<\/sup> Pure Land Buddhism is still a very culturally relevant tradition in Japan, and many artists, like Mori, still create these visual representations and find them important. The Pure Land tradition continues in the Japanese artistic and cultural scenes, particularly in providing basic elements for the aesthetics that are fundamental to the visual arts and their production. Pure Land Buddhism has played a major role in the construction of theories of art and provided motifs for artistic works.[81] There are quite a few Pure Land images. Pure Land style or, jodo<\/em>, is based on the Buddhist tradition that uses three Mahayana sutras, or the Three Pure Land Sutras. The object of devotion in these texts is Amida Buddha, who preaches a \u201cpromise of salvation for all sentient beings\u201d and outlines Amida Buddha\u2019s vows and path to Buddhahood.[82] The Pure Land is the paradise achieved by following the teachings of Amida Buddha. A famous depiction of Pure Land Buddhism can be found in the Ho\u0304o\u0304do\u0304, or Phoenix Hall at the Byodoin monastery in Uji, south of Kyoto (Fig. 19). Mori\u2019s work is dependent on this exact motif. In this work, Amida Buddha sits on a lotus flower accompanied by bodhisattvas in the clouds. These are the Unchu\u0304 kuyo\u0304 bosatsu<\/em>, or apsaras<\/em>, that the manga-like musicians are modeled on (Fig. 20).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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Figure 19. Sculpture of Amitabha, or Amida Buddha 11th Century, Heian Period. Byodoin Temple, Uji, Japan Gilt wood 94 inches high<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 20. Sculptures of Bodhisattvas on floating clouds 11th Century, Heian Period. Byodoin Temple, Uji, Japan Wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike the other photographs in the Esoteric Cosmos,\u201d Pure Land<\/em> is idyllic and more playful than the other three. There is no fire or dark cavern-like underworld. Pinks, oranges, and yellows create a tranquil space that appears decorative or charming, but it goes beyond cute and kitschy, serving as the final step, or float, to Nirvana.[83]<\/sup> In this image, the artist is surrounded by a group of alien-looking musicians on clouds playing traditional Japanese instruments that are still used in Japan today for Shinto and Buddhist ceremonies (Fig. 21).[84]<\/sup> These figures are celestial dancers, singers, and musicians who performed for the gods, similar to the apsaras and Gandharvas in Buddhism and Hinduism. Specifically, the Gandharvas were musicians, and the deva-Gandharva resided in the skies or water with their wives, the apsaras (Fig. 22).[85] Although these figures in \u201cPure Land\u201d may roughly represent this Buddhist tradition, Mori\u2019s version of the Gandharvas is a very abstract representation of the traditional Gandharva, featuring cartoon-like eyes and animated bodies in a very manga style.[86] The backdrop of this piece is the Dead Sea, with salt formations visible on the surface of the water. In Japanese culture, salt is a symbol of purification. The Dead Sea is the lowest part of the earth, but also the purest in this case.[87]<\/sup> A plantlike or floral \u201cglass palace\u201d sits in the back right of the image, recalling the shape of Tibetan stupas (Fig. 23). A lotus flower floats just below Mori, on the surface of the water.[88]<\/sup> This refers to the belief in Buddhism that one is reborn out of a lotus into paradise (Fig. 24).[89]<\/sup><\/p>\n

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Figure 21. Detail of Gandharvas or Musicians in \u201cPure Land\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 22. Gandharva (right) with an Apsara 10th century. Cham, Vietnam Tra Kieu Style Dancers Pedestal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 23. Detail of the \u201cGlass Palace\u201d in \u201cPure Land\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this image, Mori is dressed as Kichijoten,<\/em> the Japanese female deity of the abundance of many things, such as fertility, fortune, luck, beauty, and merit. Kichijoten<\/em> is a Buddhist figure present from the Heian Period to the Kamakura Period, as seen in this image from around 1212 at the Jyoruri Temple in Kyoto, Japan (Fig. 25). In her left hand, she holds hoju<\/em>, a common attribute of Kichijoten. Shaped like the bud of a lotus, it serves a purpose like that of a crystal ball, making wishes come true. Her other hand makes a gesture, forming the Gyan mudra, which we saw in \u201cBurning Desire\u201d from one of the figures surrounding Mori. Normally, Kichijoten forms the mudra of segan-in, which indicates Buddhist charity or the granting of desires.[90] The robe Mori wears, with long, wide sleeves, is like the traditional outfit of Kichijoten, with flowing scarves that protrude from around her sides and create a whimsical sort of movement.[91] Throughout her Esoteric Cosmos<\/em>, \u201cPure Land\u201d is the only one that directly references a particular Buddhist deity, perhaps because it is the end of the series. \u201cPure Land\u201d represents the end of the road, the reaching of Nirvana, the finale.<\/p>\n

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Figure 24. Detail of Mori and the Lotus in \u201cPure Land\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 25. \u015ar\u012bmah\u0101dev\u012b in Sanskrit, or Kichij\u014dten in Japanese ACE 1212. Jyoruri Temple, Kyoto, Japan Wood colored 90cm figure height<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kichijoten is also important to the feminist aspects of Mori\u2019s work. Her choice of this character in place of the Amida Buddha, who would normally be present in a Pure Land Buddhism image, does not go unnoticed. This could be translated by feminists as a strike back at the patriarchal Buddhist traditions. However, Mori describes it as more of a yearning to present the visual female beauty. To Mori, bodhisattvas deserve the same kind of attention as any other beautiful figure in our world, past or present day. This duality of cyborg and goddess that I mentioned previously is important to Mori. However, in Pure Land<\/em>, with Mori cosplaying a Buddhist deity, it seems that this is her destination. Her own identity, the identity of a well-known Buddhist deity, and a technological, digital spin on both, fuse together to reach Enlightenment. The soft and strong visual beauty of Mori\u2019s Nirvana is her as a floating goddess. This is certainly indicative of her own personal journey toward spiritual enlightenment and her emphasis on the connected consciousness and liberation from the chain of life.[92]<\/p>\n

[78]<\/sup> SoonJin Lee, \u201cThe Art of Artists\u2019 Personae: Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, and Mariko Mori,\u201d (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2014), 142.<\/h5>\n
[79]<\/sup> Stephen Lemons, \u201cAs She Wishes: Japanese artist Mariko Mori is seeking her form of enlightenment in her work,\u201d Los Angeles Times<\/em>, 1998.<\/h5>\n
[80]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>\n
[81] Porcu, Pure Land<\/em>, 180-181.<\/h5>\n
[82] Porcu, Pure Land<\/em>, 14.<\/h5>\n
[83]<\/sup> Landi Raubenheimer, \u201cFlatness and immersion in Mariko Mori\u2019s Pureland<\/em>: the possibility of a digital sublime,\u201d South African Journal of Art History<\/em> 22, no. 3 (2007): 151.<\/h5>\n
[84]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>\n
[85] Sreenivasaraos, \u201cMusic of India: Gandharva or Marga Music,\u201d last modified April 24, 2015, https:\/\/sreenivasaraos.com\/tag\/gandharva\/\/.<\/h5>\n
[86] The traditional gandharva is shown in an image from a 10th<\/sup> century Cham, Vietnam carving or \u2018Dancers\u2019 Pedestal.\u2019<\/h5>\n
[87]<\/sup> Lemons, \u201cAs She Wishes.\u201d<\/h5>\n
[88]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>\n
[89]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>\n
[90] Japanese Buddhist Statuary, “Kichijoten, Kichijo Tennyo, Kudokuten Goddess of Beauty, Fertility, Prosperity, and Merit,\u201d accessed October 4, 2022, https:\/\/www.onmarkproductions.com\/html\/kichijouten.html.<\/h5>\n
[91] Philadelphia Museum of Art, \u201cKisshoten (Kichijoten),\u201d accessed October 4, 2022, https:\/\/www.philamuseum.org\/collection\/object\/305645.<\/h5>\n
[92] Cindi Di Marzo, \u201cA Traveler in Time.\u201d<\/h5>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTies to Spirituality and Buddhism
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Figure 1. Mariko Mori, Pure Land 1996-97. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches \u00a0 Pure Land The final photograph in the Esoteric Cosmos series is \u201cPure Land,\u201d (Fig. 1) the centerpiece of this study. \u201cPure Land\u201d was created in 1996 and was later turned into a seven-minute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-74","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":73,"date":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=73"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:43:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:43:27","slug":"mirror-of-water","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/mirror-of-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Mirror of Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Figure 15. Mariko Mori, Mirror of Water 1998. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0<\/h2>

Mirror of Water<\/h2>

The third image in the series, \u201cMirror of Water,\u201d (Fig.15) was photographed in the Grotte de Cussac, a French cave in Dordogne, famous for containing over 150 Paleolithic artworks as well as several human remains. The cave, sculpted by water over millions of years, was likely chosen by Mori because of its spiritual and sacral importance. The cave is one of the oldest examples of a global spiritualty, according to archeological groups, representing relocation and identity after death.[72] In \u201cMirror of Water,\u201d Mori combines the traditional and the futuristic, as in \u201cEntropy of Love.\u201d We see this combination of the traditional and the futuristic again in Mori\u2019s artwork titled \u201cPratibimba III\u201d from 1998 (Fig. 16). The \u201cPratibimba\u201d series is a series of three that represents the past, present, and future. Mori dresses up as each of the three members of the \u201cPratibimba\u201d triptych.[73] She repeats this exact self-portrait in \u201cMirror of Water,\u201d similar to how she does in \u201cBurning Desire,\u201d but in a more obvious way. Her repeated self-portrait suggests that the self is \u201cpart of a continuous chain of life, death, dissolution, and rebirth.\u201d[74] Carol S. Eliel writes that \u201chuman consciousness follows the endless cycle from the eternal past to the eternal future,\u201d similar to how the cave endlessly changes in shape from the water constantly flowing through it.[75]<\/sup> Unlike \u201cBurning Desire,\u201d the repeated self-portrait characters in \u201cMirror of Water\u201d are nearly identical, almost as if they were copied and pasted to different corners of the collage. However, they are meant to be Mori at eight different moments, all somewhere in that endless cycle. The eight moments or stages of life are infancy, toddlerhood, preschool years, early school years, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood.[76] However, because Mori looks the same age in each moment despite changing positions, the eight moments are meant to represent the steps in the eightfold path to nirvana. Briefly defined, the steps of the path are right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Although these figures cannot specifically be paired to each of the eight steps, \u201cMirror of Water\u201d conveys the idea of continuity Mori\u2019s body floats upwards in a couple instances and has translucent, balloon legs, as if she\u2019ll float out of the frame in just a few moments. The elements of transparency in Mori\u2019s legs, the effect that would have on her ability to stabilize or root herself, and the reflection of the water are important visual effects in this image that can indicate feminist ideology, inward reflection, and Mori\u2019s place in society.<\/p>

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Figure 16. Mariko Mori, Pratibimba III 1998. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass with Mirror Finish 4ft diameter<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Moving on from Mori\u2019s figure in Mirror of Water<\/em>, we must look at the other visual elements that make up the image. In the middle of the dark cave, we see the object Mori calls the \u201cUFO,\u201d which houses a variety of rooms. The form recalls the womb-like bubble in \u201cEntropy of Love\u201d with its multiple egg-shaped capsules. Within the bubble (Fig. 17), ten different rooms make up the space, one of which is the \u201ctea ceremony room of the future,\u201d another combination of the traditional with the futuristic.[77]<\/sup> The room in yellow at the bottom of the bubble is not unlike the room we see Mori serving tea to a group of men in an earlier piece called \u201cTea Ceremony I\u201d (Fig. 18) from her Tea Ceremony<\/em> series. Finally, it is worth noting that, at the top of the bubble, we see a group of white spheres, nearly identical to her father\u2019s \u201csunflower\u201d invention mentioned previously (Fig. 2). Where the ideas of Buddhism are a bit more abstract and less tangible, the soft feminist ideologies can be found straightforward with the right facts. Unlike Burning Desire<\/em>, which is full of spiritual iconography and fewer feminist elements, Mirror of Water<\/em> is the opposite. Mori reuses cyborg and feminist imagery that we see in previous works that are straightforwardly commenting on a women\u2019s role in society.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 17. Detail of \u201cMirror of Water\u201d<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 18. Mariko Mori, Tea Ceremony II 1994. Sean Kelly Gallery Cibachrome Print, Wood, Aluminum, Pewter Frame 48 x 60 x 2\"<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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[72] Sacha Kacki, Erik Trinkaus, Eline M. J. Schotsmans, Patrice Courtaud, Irene Dori, Bruno Dutailly, Pierre Guyomarc\u2019h, Pascal Mora, Vitale S. Sparacello, and Sebastien Villotte. \u201cComplex Mortuary Dynamics in the Upper Paleolithic of the Decorated Grotte de Cussac, France.\u201d\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS<\/em>\u00a0117, no. 26 (2020): 14856.<\/h5>
[73] Martha Garzon, \u201cContemporary Art: Mariko Mori,\u201d accessed October 4, 2022, http:\/\/www.marthagarzon.com\/contemporary_art\/2011\/08\/mariko-mori-cybergeishas-technonolgy\/\/.<\/h5>
[74] Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>
[75]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>
[76] Erin Eatough, \u201cThe 8 life stages and what we can learn from each one,\u201d BetterUp<\/em>, August 31, 2022, https:\/\/www.betterup.com\/blog\/stages-of-life.<\/h5>
[77]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 30.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 15. Mariko Mori, Mirror of Water 1998. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches \u00a0 Mirror of Water The third image in the series, \u201cMirror of Water,\u201d (Fig.15) was photographed in the Grotte de Cussac, a French cave in Dordogne, famous for containing over 150 Paleolithic artworks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-73","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":72,"date":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/?page_id=72"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:35:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T17:35:17","slug":"burning-desire","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/burning-desire\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning Desire"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t

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Figure 11. Mariko Mori, Burning Desire 1998. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0<\/h2>

Burning Desire<\/h2>

The second image in the series, \u201cBurning <\/span>Desire,\u201d was created between 1996 and 1998 (Fig 11.) The background was photographed in Mongolia\u2019s Flaming Cliffs in the southern Gobi Desert.[57] The site of the Flaming Cliffs <\/span>is linked to Buddhism nominally and metaphorically. This site and Mori\u2019s choosing it <\/span>may <\/span>allude to an episode from the Chinese novel Journey to the West<\/em>, written in the 16th<\/sup> century by Wu Cheng-en during the Ming Dynasty.[58] The story surrounds the seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk Xu<\/span>\u00e1<\/span>nz\u00e0ng\u2019s travel to India in search of sacred texts. Consisting of 100 chapters, Journey to the West<\/em>, or \u201cMonkey<\/span> King,\u201d as it is often known, takes place in the wilderness for the bulk of the journey with Xu<\/span>\u00e1<\/span>nz\u00e0ng and his disciples on 81 adventures.[59] Within these chapters, there are flaming mountains, magical monsters, and even a kingdom ruled by women. Throughout the journey, the four disciples must bravely fend off attacks on their teacher Xu<\/span>\u00e1<\/span>nz\u00e0ng, from various monsters and situations. Either engineered by fate or the Buddha, no harm comes to the disciples. In the end, Xu<\/span>\u00e1<\/span>nz\u00e0ng must face one last disaster to attain Buddhahood.[60]<\/span> \u201cBurning Desire\u201d may allude to the episode in which the disciples must endure and overcome a burning fire test, crossing through the fiery mountains that stretch 250 miles of flame to get to the West.[61] The story and the hot, dry desert itself are both testaments to perseverance and hardship one must endure on the path toward enlightenment.<\/span><\/p>

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Figure 12. Detail of center figure in \u201cBurning Desire\u201d<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 13. Avalokiteshvara 18th Century. Mongolia Metal Sculpture<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 14. Green Tara 20th Century. Collection Penjor Dorji, Bhutan Erich Lessing, Art Resource, NY Bronze Sculpture<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Mori imposes herself on the floating deity, and the four figures are engulfed in flame. The four-armed bodhisattva hovers in a rainbow nimbus with her back two hands in the air, the right holding a rose, and the left holding a Buddhist rosary (Fig. 12). A bodhisattva is an important Buddhist deity that Mori frequently appropriates.[62]<\/sup> This figure is most likely a representation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, as seen in a metal sculpture of Avalokiteshvara from 18th<\/sup>-century China (Fig. 13). In this sculpture, the figure holds the same objects as Mori, seated cross-legged with their front two hands in a similar mudra. In \u201cBurning Desire,\u201d Mori holds the same objects, and her thumb and pointer finger on each hand come together to mimic the vitarka mudra, a hand symbol in Buddhism that is used to signify discussion, teaching, and intellectual argument. The circle that is created by the joining of the fingers represents the wheel of law or dharma.[63] Her front two arms come together to create what looks like the Namaskara or Anjali mudra. This mudra is the gesture of greeting, prayer, and adoration rarely seen in images of enlightened Buddhas but more common in Bodhisattvas who are preparing to attain enlightenment.[64] This is an important factor in judging whether Mori\u2019s creations allude to real Buddhist tradition because as a stage in her Esoteric Cosmos<\/em> with \u201cPure Land\u201d representing Nirvana, this placement is right where it should be on Mori\u2019s journey to enlightenment. Mori is dressed in a traditional Indian costume, according to scholar Jungwhe Moon. However, once we zoom into the details of this image, we can see that the artist embellished this costume and character.[65] For example, Mori\u2019s green hairdo is tied up into a tight bun with tresses of pink ribbon that fall on both sides of her face, almost as an extension of her hair. However, Avalokiteshvara commonly had dark blue hair tied in this exact way, as seen in an image of a bronze sculpture from 20th<\/sup>-century Bhutan (Fig. 14).[66] Tara is a female deity of Compassion and the female counterpart of the bodhisattva, whose Avalokiteshvara, who\u2019s whole body is generally green in many representations. Tara is the protectress of navigation and earthly travel, as well as spiritual travel to enlightenment, making her an obvious choice by Mori, who\u2019s creating a series on the journey to enlightenment.[67] Bodhisattvas have a physical form of a female among its many forms, Tara being one of them. The gender of bodhisattvas are often hard to distinguish, but Mori is clearly playing the role of a female deity.[68] There are countless details throughout Mori\u2019s Esoteric Cosmos that do share similarities with esoteric Buddhist visual culture, but Mori continues to blend authentic religious tradition with her own creative touch to make it seem not completely unapproachable. You can find something familiar in her recreations of ancient religious tradition, for example, in the recognizable desert setting of \u201cBurning Desire\u201d or \u201cEntropy of Love,\u201d or in Mori\u2019s soft features that the viewer can connect with. This familiarity creates a shared experience between the viewer and the artist.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Beneath and behind the figure of Mori as a bodhisattva are the rocky landscape of the desert. On either side of her appear four figures engulfed in flames, practitioners that follow the Buddha\u2019s teaching. The flames, or the \u201cfire of sensory-based desire,\u201d surrounding the practitioners should extinguish once the state of nirvana is achieved.[69] They each hold a different object and make a different hand gesture but wear the same hat and different variations of the same outfit. The object in the hand of the disciple on the far left appears to be a whisk, a symbol that implies the overcoming of obstacles. The third disciple overholds a very similar object. The other two objects, in the hands of the second and fourth disciples, appear to be axed, which ward off calamity and help achieve calamity.[70] Although, it is clear that Mori did not intend for them to be exact replicas of the traditional objects. All of them make different mudras, the Gyan mudra on the left and the Prithvi mudra on the right two figures. Both mudras represent a seal, promoting healing and spiritual balance. Interestingly, Prithvi is also known as the \u201cEarth Mudra,\u201d as it can balance the earth element.[71] Although these details are not exact and are paired with completely made-up costumes that look almost extraterrestrial, Mori still finds a way to appropriate the traditions of Buddhism to produce her own meaning and creativity by using a mudra that represents earth for her series that encapsulates the elements of nature and spirit. She uses the iconography of esoteric Buddhism and her own creativity to piece together Burning Desire <\/em>and provide another stage of the \u201cEsoteric Cosmos.\u201d The image is certainly more spiritual than feminist; however, using the story of the Monkey King, a journey about hardship and perseverance, with the inclusion of a female deity at the center of her story is a clear indication of equalist thinking.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[57] Holland, \u201cGlobal Connectedness,\u201d 17.<\/h5>
[58] Yu-long Ling, \u201cReview,\u201d review of Journey to the West<\/em>, by Wu Cheng-en, American Journal of Chinese Studies<\/em>\u00a020, no. 1 (2013): 83\u201384.<\/h5>
[59] Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em>, “Journey to the West,”\u00a0last modified September 12, 2022, https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Journey-to-the-West.<\/h5>
[60] \u201cJourney to the West,\u201d Dragon Ball Updates, accessed October 4, 2022, https:\/\/dragonballupdates.fandom.com\/wiki\/Journey_to_the_West#Notable_English-language_translations.<\/h5>
[61] Wu Cheng-en, Journey to the West<\/em>, trans. Collinson Fair (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2005), 813.<\/h5>
[62]<\/sup> Eliel, \u201cInterpreting Tradition,\u201d 29.<\/h5>
[63] Dallas Museum of Art, \u201cCultures & Traditions,\u201d last modified May 3, 2013, https:\/\/collections.dma.org\/essay\/XDwRJwG3.<\/h5>
[64] Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, \u201cMudra: What Do Buddhist Hand Gestures Mean?\u201d Tricycle Magazine<\/em>, Fall 1996, https:\/\/tricycle.org\/magazine\/mudra\/.<\/h5>
[65] Jungwhe Moon Jungwhe Moon, \u201cAmerican Perception of Japanese Culture in Takashi Murakami and Mariko Mori\u2019s Art: A Study of Aesthetics of Murakami and Mori\u2019s Artwork\u201d (Master of Arts, Georgetown University, 2003), 52.<\/h5>
[66] Himalayan Art Resources, \u201cAvalokiteshvara: Interpretation and Description,\u201d last modified July 7, 2012, https:\/\/www.himalayanart.org\/items\/88569<\/a>.<\/h5>
[67] Encyclopedia Britannica, \u201cTara,\u201d last modified October 31, 2017, <\/em>https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Tara-Buddhist-goddess<\/a>. <\/em><\/h5>
[68] Himalayan Art Resources, \u201cAvalokiteshvara,\u201d https:\/\/www.himalayanart.org\/items\/88569<\/a>.<\/h5>
[69] Holland, \u201cGlobal Connectedness,\u201d 17.<\/h5>
[70] Japanese Buddhist Statuary, \u201cObjects, Symbols, and Weapons Held by 1000-Armed Kannon and Other Buddhist Deities,\u201d accessed October 4, 2022, https:\/\/www.onmarkproductions.com\/html\/objects-symbols-weapons-senju.html.<\/h5>
[71] Yogapedia, \u201cPrithvi Mudra,\u201d last modified April 23, 2020, https:\/\/www.yogapedia.com\/definition\/6853\/prithvi-mudra.<\/a><\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEntropy of Love<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMirror of Water<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Figure 11. Mariko Mori, Burning Desire 1998. Courtesy of Deitch Projects Color Photograph on Glass 10ft x 20ft x 0.85 inches \u00a0 Burning Desire The second image in the series, \u201cBurning Desire,\u201d was created between 1996 and 1998 (Fig 11.) The background was photographed in Mongolia\u2019s Flaming Cliffs in the southern Gobi Desert.[57] The site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3844,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-72","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/digitalcapstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]