Many of INOMATA’s works are based on cooperation with living beings. Up to now, she used a 3D printer to make transparent shells in the shapes of cities or buildings, which she gave to hermit crabs to move in, or create city-shaped objects she placed on turtles’ backs; exchanged “clothes” with a dog in the form of the dog’s and her own hair; had bagworms make cocoons out of pieces of women’s clothing; or took a parakeet out to take lessons in French.

For the realization of her works, INOMATA first studies the modes of life and characteristics of the creatures to work with, based on which she works out appropriate ways of approaching the respective creative work. We tend to believe that living beings other than humans live in a different world with a different logic, due to which means of communication between human and non-human are extremely limited. By taking the behavior of living beings other than humans, and placing it in the human world, INOMATA aims to re-examine human beings from a new perspective, and thereby rediscover aspects of her own species. This may be considered as an act of creating one fiction by exploring new forms of communication between animals and men, and discovering their respective roles therein.

On display at this exhibition were a number of recent works, and the new work “LINES: Listening to shell’s growth lines ver.1.0,” in which the artist converts the growth lines of shells that reflect changes in their habitat just like the growth rings of trees, into sounds.