To accompany their large-scale installation MATA IROHA in the exhibition Pleasure in Making at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Dunhill and O’Brien created a series of smaller interactive works. Rather than asking visitors simply to look at sculpture, Feeling invited them to explore it through touch, conversation and collaborative description. Sited in a gallery space curated by the architectural labs Akihiro Ito and studiomegane, the following invitation was made to visitors:
“We have often overheard visitors to sculpture exhibitions mention that they would like to have a tactile relationship with the work, that they want to be able to touch it. We have even spotted some people quietly reaching out to feel a sculpture when the invigilators back has been turned.
We invite you to explore some forms before or after seeing them in the next-door gallery. Please take your time – these are complicated objects that have some pointed details as well as softer undulations. We recommend that you move your hands gently and with some caution over the surface while you become familiar with their varied shapes and textures.
If you would like to take this experience to the next level, you could collaborate with a friend or another exhibition visitor. Try describing the object you are feeling in words so that they can make a drawing, why not take it in turns. There is some paper and pencils provided for this purpose..”
The invitation extended beyond the gallery. Each exhibition catalogue contained a pack of air-drying paper clay together with suggestions for making, allowing visitors to continue the experience of handling and thinking through sculpture at home.
