July 2019

in collaboration with Hiroshima City University

 

After the expanses of Mongolia, the focus of ROOMS TO LET in Chapter Three is on life in extremely narrow spaces within a highly technological environment. The artists conduct their research in various hotel spaces in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nara. The stay in cramped capsule hotels, in onsens with large bathing facilities, in traditional hotels with paper walls. They explore love hotels with their specific rules and forms and also stay in nameless, interchangeable, all-round hotels or in utilitarian buildings that have been repurposed into hotels.

 

The theme of investigation is the utilization of private and public spaces along with the concomitant rules and borders. How do human bodies behave in the prescribed structures? What forms are found for crossing over spatial borders? After having been taken off the feet, how are slippers to be arranged in front of a door? How do strips of adhesive tape and signs conveying information indicate dangers to the body?

 

In 88 House Hiroschima, a former market-garden, ROOMS TO LET are able to work throughout the entire hotel: in the rooms, the outside space, the inner courtyard, and the workshop spaces.

 

Together with the Japanese artist Mai Kiyooka, ROOMS TO LET work with the existing space. Sculptural statements and shifted hotel objects raise new questions. Large-format works created by means of photocopying technology are set up in front of walls; a video work is installed. Delicate sculptures establish contrasts to massive found pieces.

 

The project also proceeds in collaboration with Hiroshima City University, where ROOMS TO LET hold a lecture and offered a workshop. At the opening appeared a heterogeneous public consisting of hotel guests, friends of the arts, artists, neighbors and art students.