3D Ikat
3D Ikat
Undisappeared Clouds
Ikat Installation: wood, nails, cotton yarns, natural dyes(madder, cochineal, lac, logwood, weld, mushroom, marigold, pomegranate, alum, iron), 2025
82”x 73” x 59”
I am exploring three-dimensional ways of showing ikat (kasuri in Japanese) using natural dyeing as a site-specific installation. Ikat is one of the most labor-intensive weaving processes; it has been practiced more in Asia and Africa. My challenge this time was to create a cloud design using resist dyeing (wrapping the weft), without weaving. The multicolored clouds symbolize dreams and hopes, while also subtly hinting at the sense of fear in the modern digital world. By combining the cloud as a metaphor for the storage of digital data we rely on in our daily lives with the process of creation, I am conveying the concern of how beautiful colored clouds can disappear if even a small mistake is made; the leakage of darker colors (iron mordant) threatened to obscure the clouds. Using the corner of two walls of the space for this installation, I am dealing with the architecture, gravity, and mathematical relationships, as well as the chemistry of the natural dyeing process.
photographed by Makoto Yano
3D Ikat II, Studio Kura, Kyushu, Japan, 2024,
cotton threads, Indigo dye, wooden pegs, 12’ x 6’ (2 walls)
3D Ikat II, detail, images of kura (Japanese traditional storage) and a steam house
2D (woven) piece using the same skein from the 3D (Kura section) above
3D Ikat I “Seedling”, cotton threads, natural dye (cochineal), wood, 2024
one repeat of single width from the 2D piece
three repeats of double width from the 2D piece, 7”x12”x6”)
2D (woven) piece, 52” x 9.5”