Artist Emmanuelle Moureaux used over 100,000 paper number cut-outs to create this astounding installation designed to visualize and make one feel the flow of time. On show at the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design in Toyama, Japan, the Colour of Time installation is part of a series of exhibitions that aim to explore the different functions of materials.
The space was composed by a total of approximately 120,000 numeral figures from “0” to “9”, and a symbol “:”, regularly aligned in three-dimensional grids. Although these figures seem like a dense volume, it expresses the flow of “time” in every minute. The installation is composed of 100 layers, and in each layer, the time flows from left to right, then into the depth of the installation. The top front layer starts from sunrise at 06:30 with pale colors, then their colors gradually become darker as time flows. At the end, the installation is completed by the time of darkness, 19:49, in a color that is the first time for Emmanuelle’s works to use in her installations – black.
Lead by the path that is cut through the installation in the middle, “Miss Blanche” chair designed by Shiro Kuramata is positioned. “Miss Blanche” is placed by the deputy director of Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design, who is also curator of the exhibition, to create the axis to express a deep respect and admiration from Emmanuelle to Shiro Kuramata. Through the tunnel, the sky is tinted with a beautiful gradation changing from pale to deep colors, flowing from time to time. The installation makes one feel the subtle changes in the atmosphere through the whole body, by traveling the colorful flow of time.
Colour of Time was on show between 16 November 2017 to 8 January 2018.
all images © Daisuke Shima