Stone on Boundary Singapore, 2024

by Yasuaki Onishi (Japan)

The stones, which were formed from magma born from inside the earth, solidified and changed shape as they were carried by the river flow, such as the accumulation of sediment, form a riverbank that spreads horizontally while tracing the surface of the earth. The stones are arranged in a structure that evokes a fence, an artificial boundary. The stones that reach the riverbank are molded with copper foil, which shows the outside and inside forms, the amount and time of the parts that have been shaved so far and the parts that will be shaved in the future, and it can be said that they are being reconstructed and returned to a larger form.

The audience can view the work from either side, changing their position and facing the boundaries of inside and outside, back and front, and even the existence of which is uncertain. In addition, the simple method of covering the stones with copper foil and removing them to leave their shapes suggests that only a part of the stone can be reproduced, suggesting that "it is impossible to understand everything."

Copper foil, a material that usually functions inside the products that support our lives and is not seen directly, is transformed into a work that captures time and space in a different way than before.

Taking the shapes of river stones, which I cannot create myself, and making molds from them with paper-thin copper foil reveals the internal and external forms on either side of the surfaces.

River stones are the result of part of the Earth’s colossal sphere emerging to the surface, being broken up, carried by a river, and gradually eroded and reshaped. The stones travel over the Earth’s surface, their forms worn away to approach the spherical as they traverse the riverbed. I pick stones out of the riverbed and cover them in copper foil to create molds, which I then position in spaces.

This act of gathering and reconfiguring stone-based molds can be called a transformation of part of the Earth into a different, more expansive form. The tactile process of pressing crinkled copper foil onto stones with my fingertips, then tapping the stones’ surfaces with a tool like a wooden mallet while smoothing them, reflects the stones’ own geological journey across our planet’s terrain. These molds, internally and externally retaining the forms of the original stones even after the stones are gone, reveal the passage of time and the degree of erosion they have undergone and will continue to undergo.