Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct

Left to right: Yuko Mohri, Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations, 2022; Aluaiy Kaumakan, Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies, 2021-2022.

Yuko Mohri, Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations, 2022
Tokyo-based artist Yuko Mohri is known for her sound installations and sculptures using readymade materials that explore connections between human-designed and natural processes.

Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo) is a series of makeshift water repairs found at train and subway stations across metropolitan Tokyo. Mohri began the series in 2009, when she noticed how station agents were creatively combining everyday objects and materials such as umbrellas, bags, water bottles, buckets, and plastic sheeting to redirect the flow of groundwater leaking through the municipal infrastructure.

'Around 10 years ago, when I had no money but a lot of time, I would buy a daily travel pass for the JR trains or the subway and travel to areas in Tokyo that I had never been to before. Strolling and wandering around, I observed the locations of water leaks at stations. The methods and objects used to stop the leaks varied depending on the stations or train lines. To me they looked like different approaches to sculpting – they were treasure houses of inspiration.'—Yuko Mohri

Aluaiy Kaumakan, Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies, 2021-2022.
Aluaiy Kaumakan belongs to a leading noble family of the Paiwan Nation from the Paridrayan Community of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan. In 2009 her village was hit by violent Typhoon Morakot, forcing people to relocate to the Rinari community. For Semasipu – Remembering Our Intimacies, Kaumakan returned to her ancestral village to collect cultural belongings and objects, printing on silk through a rubbing process. One of the important cultural objects is dredredan, an ancestral earthenware pot reimagined in woven form.

Kaumakan has connected members of her displaced community through a participatory process exploring the concept of Sicevudan which means emergence of the river in the deepest mountain. Elder women led ceremony with Kaumakan on returning to their ancestral waters. Semasipumeans the sensorial ability to soothe led by Elder women.

'Rubbing carried the definition of my life, returning me to my ancestral town: Paridrayan community, my home, my cultural heritage, my childhood memories. After Typhoon Morakot on 8 August 2009, we were not allowed to return to our community. It is impossible for us to dismantle and relocate the community, so what should we do? By rubbing, letting that trace be produced through my hands, I carry something of that memory into my work.'—Aluaiy Kaumakan