One Cut One Bow interviews:Kaoru Hirano

Group Exhibition: "Wardrobe Memories", Arts Maebashi, Gunma, 10 October 2014 - 13 January 2015.
Photo by Shinya KIGURE.

One Cut One Bow (Magdalen Chua and Ryotaro Hoshino) interviewed Kaoru Hirano on 24 October 2015 in Berlin.
Hirano has been creating sculptural forms by unravelling and re-tying threads from clothes and accessories,
influenced by her childhood memory of her mother making clothes. Based in Berlin since 2009, she has recently
moved to Hiroshima, Japan.
Material and process
One Cut One Bow (OCOB): How does your chosen material influence the eventual form of your work?
Kaoru Hirano (KH): If I already have a story, I look for a particular material related to it. If I am just browsing in asecond-hand shop, I choose a material based on whether I can imagine the eventual form. It could be something
about the colour, fabric or shape of clothes, shoes or an umbrella, etc., and the sense of what happens when they
are unravelled, united and finally installed in a space. If I can imagine how it appears, I will take the material.
OCOB: For your sphere work (sphere #3, 2012), did you intend to make a sphere before you unravelled the chinopants?
KH: Yes. Someone gave me the chino pants.
OCOB: Daigoro (Hirano’s husband)?
KH: Secret...
OCOB: How about the underwear?
KH: Secret.
OCOB: Top secret?
KH: Top secret. If I say the underwear is Daigoro's, we can only imagine him. If the person is unknown, everyone will
have their own image of the owner.
OCOB: Your work requires a lot of time, labour and energy. Is it important that you make your work by yourself?
KH: No, it isn’t. In the past, people have helped me and depending on the nature of the work, I might get help infuture.

気配 (kehai - Memory/Sign/Presence)
OCOB: We have sometimes used the word “memory” for “気配” (kehai) about your practice. Is there a gap between
the meanings of both words?
KH: I am not very good at English, but probably, this Japanese word “気配” (kehai) cannot be adequately translated
by “memory”. Perhaps more than one word is required to explain “気配” (kehai).
OCOB: How do you sense “気配” (kehai)?
KH: Though clothes are usually worn, when unravelled, deconstructed and made into a work, the position changes
such that the clothes wear the owner. Even though the owner does not exist in the work itself, we can probably
imagine and sense the person who was wearing it, as their presence remains there in some way.
OCOB: We were recently talking to a friend from Lebanon. He needed some warm clothes and we suggested that hevisits a second-hand shop. The idea of a second-hand shop was new to him. We explained that the shop sells
clothes previously worn by other people. He didn't like the idea because the energy of the other person would remainon the clothes. In his culture, after a person dies, him or her clothes are burnt. We began throwing around words forthis idea of energy or aura, and started to wonder if you wear second-hand clothes.
KH: I like second-hand clothes.
OCOB: Me too. What happens for clothes with more than one owner?
KH: A wedding dress might be worn by five brides and my wedding dress work (untitled -brides-, 2012) concerns themaking of a ritual into form, as a wedding dress is worn only for a wedding ceremony. It is less about an individual
person, than about the concept of the bride.
When I have materials from a second-hand shop, I do not know the story of material. I don’t know if there is only one
owner, or two or three, but it doesn’t matter because I can create a new story. Perhaps no one can know the historyof clothes, but we can imagine it.
OCOB: Do you have a story of the jacket that you’re wearing now?
KH: The owner might have been a New Yorker who bought many clothes. But I’ve already used this for 5 or 6 years
by now and it's mine.
OCOB: Your “気配” (kehai) is bigger. If I ever see someone else wearing a shirt that I have given away, I think I would
have a strange sensation and feel that the shirt still mine.
KH: I think it’s the same for a house. Perhaps clothes are also like spaces that people live in.

sphere #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9; 2012;chino pants, sock (right), sock( left), T-shirt, sock (right),sock (left), panties;
diameter: 16cm, 5cm, 5cm, 10cm, 6cm, 6cm, 6cm.
Photo by Nobutada OMOTE (SANDWICH GRAPHIC).

untitled -brides-, 2012,
wedding dress,
dimensions variable.
Photo by Nobutada OMOTE (SANDWICH GRAPHIC).
Collection : Takahashi collection

Experimentation
OCOB: Are there any new materials that you are interested in using?
KH: I have always wanted to use new materials and have been challenging myself but my experiments have not quite
materialised into an eventual work. I think there are materials I can use to express “気配” (kehai), but so far, I haven’t
found any which feels right.
OCOB: I remember seeing something in your studio last year that you were knitting. I think you wanted to knit asweatshirt and you said that you didn't like it.
KH: I tried knitting, but I don’t like it. I think I finished the last piece I worked on. One thread is big, like a pom-pom. I
don't know why, but knitting makes a work too thick. I tried different things, including a birthday cake. I covered abirthday cake with candle wax. I lit candles on the birthday cake and all the wax melted. Eventually, the birthday cakewas coated with the candle wax.
OCOB: Can you tell us a bit more?
thKH: I wanted to make something special to celebrate. My birthday is on the 15 September and my birthday is only
this day, but every day is somebody's birthday. I covered the cake with the candle wax and planned to remove thecake, leaving the wax. However, I couldn’t remove the cake easily and also had doubts about how the work woulddevelop. I left the cake covered in the candle wax until I had to throw it away.
I also worked with obituaries. In the newspaper in Germany, you have an obituary section. There is a framed section
for each person who has passed away, as well as the date of the newspaper. When you put paper on top of thenewspaper and create friction, the ink would be transferred onto the paper. I then collected all those dates. There
was a group exhibition where I showed my work from the obituaries. The exhibition space was a corridor with doors
on each end. I selected obituaries with the birth dates or passing away dates relevant to the exhibition period andplaced them at different ends of the corridor depending on whether the date occurred closer to the beginning or endof the exhibition period.
OCOB: What was the eventual work presented?
KH: The material I used was tracing paper. First of all, I cut the tracing paper in the same size as the newspaper
itself, and transferred the date the newspaper was published, the frame of obituaries and the dates within theobituaries. I placed the tracing paper on the glass doors of the exhibition space so you could see it from both sides.
OCOB: It makes me think of the physical path of life and time. It's so different from your other works.
KH: The material is different but it also makes you think about memory and time.

untitled -Traueranzeige-; 2011; newspaper, paper.
Photo by Megumi FUKUDA

untitled -Traueranzeige-; 2011; newspaper, paper

web #3, 2012, dress, h.75 x w.75 cm.
Photo by Nobutada OMOTE (SANDWICH GRAPHIC)
Collection : Takahashi collection

New works
OCOB: What are you working on now?
KH: I’m not making works now as I am preparing to move out, but for the exhibition in Augsburg (TextileErinnerungen – Remembering Textiles, Staatliches Textil und Industriemuseum Augsburg, 26 February - 8 May2016), I would like to make a slightly bigger spider web (web #3).
In addition — though I don’t know if it will materialise nor is there any exhibition intended for it — there is a material
that I am mulling over. Someone, possibly a man from a village in Germany, found his mother’s clothes in his attic
and posted on Kleinanzeigen, a German equivalent of Yahoo Auctions, asking if anyone would want a cardboard boxof his mother’s clothes.
So, I bought the box of clothes. When it arrived and I opened it, I found that almost all the contents were black
clothes, such as very long and completely black skirts. Though the shirts were white, everything else was black,
including something that could have been worn on your head like a scarf, socks which were pretty thick, etc. I thoughtthat the clothes could have belonged to a witch and want to make a work about witches.
OCOB: A witch is a very powerful image. I can’t wait to see what you will do with the work.
KH: Too powerful?
OCOB: No, no. Not too powerful.
KH: My friend told me that in Germany, witches are human.
OCOB: The idea of a witch reminds me of the historical witch-hunts, where those thought to be witches would besearched for and burnt. Are there witches in Japan?
KH: 魔女の宅急便（Majo no Takkyūbin or Witch's Delivery Service is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film
produced by Studio Ghibli also known as “Kiki’s Delivery Service”). In Japan, witches don’t have a bad image.

Returning to Japan
OCOB: Why are you returning to Japan?
KH: I like the four seasons in Japan and the light there. The sunlight in Japan is different from here. The light here is
like sand; it isn’t smooth. It is also a little blackish and the colours of trees are also gritty.
OCOB: How about in Japan?
KH: しとり(shitori)
OCOB (M): Sounds good.
OCOB (R): That's a challenge…
OCOB (M): Translate it.
OCOB (R): しとり(shitori).
OCOB (M): Dry, clear, piercing? What do you use the word with?
OCOB (R): I often use it to describe an atmosphere of a space, among activities or just a state that you are in,especially with friends. Of course we also use it for objects. You might have a しとり(shitori) time with your friend, asession which is calm and personal, though not necessarily intimate.
Your skin can be described as しとり(shitori), meaning smooth and moist, perhaps after a visit to a hot spring.
KH: The light is also softer and differs depending on the place in Japan.
TranslationOCOB: Do you have any questions for us?
KH: How do you translate?
OCOB (R): We transcribe the original Japanese text, leaving two or three lines below the transcription. I would thenwrite the hiragana and translate it word-for-word so that Mag can read it. Based on our own interpretation, we discusseach sentence in detail. We question each other a lot, on why a certain word is used or how it connects with the text.
OCOB (M): We ask each other a lot of questions and we enjoy challenging each other. That’s probably why we takeso long but this process is interesting for us.