Architecture of a Floating World Exhibition

Ukiyo is a Japanese term that means ‘Floating World’. Ukiyo developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during between 1600 and 1868. Historically, the Floating World represents a time when social hierarchy placed the merchants (the wealthiest class) at the lowest end of the scale. With their political powers removed, merchants turned their funds and efforts towards cultural production. Of the resulting art forms, the most enduring was the development of Japanese woodblock prints. What was at first considered ‘low art’ soon attained cultural status outside the sanctioned realms of shoguns, temple, and court. The content of the work typically centered on ordinary and everyday pleasures.

The work in this show promotes beauty in ordinary pleasures and the search for self-release—being a part of something bigger. We resist being grounded by expectations of what is and take action by seeing and creating worlds of our own. Yet, we find ourselves always in-between what is and what is next. There is no final conclusion—we are perpetually ‘floating’ between truths. The intention of the work is not to explain or define the world, but rather experience and describe new ways of seeing. ‘Architecture of a Floating World’ is a series offering or fragments of what might make sense and challenges the viewers to interpret or question its meanings.

‘Architecture of a Floating World’ demonstrates a unique perspective of the ordinary world. The works ask the question—what is architecture? In a contemplative approach towards uncertainty, each artwork reflects the a reality.