Shiota creates vast webs of thread that stretch and weave across entire rooms which become an emotional, overwhelming and immersive experience. The threads are so intricately placed and formed to create beautiful sculptures holding everyday objects or personal items. Keys, dresses, beds and letters.

Shiota’ installations illustrate memory, the body and its existence, and how we emotionally and physically connect to the world, and the fragility of life and death.

Her work, for me, is about colour, complexity, simplicity, being both chaotic and structured, both controlled and disordered and immersive, for some claustrophobic. The threads are the tension as well as the connection.

Using threads to map invisible connections, where the material takes over the space and builds the environment, the threads are repetitive, when accumulated together, and create the meaning. In my practice the tearing of the fabric creates flow and movement by using the open water and air it is behaving in a natural unstructured way.

I visited The Hayward Gallery to see this exhibition in March 2026.