Laundry of the Senses

現代日本では、洗濯機で行うことが当たり前になった洗濯行為を、感覚を開くクリエイティブな行為として見なおす試み。洗濯物をプライベートとパブリックをつなぐモチーフと捉え、市民が洗濯物を持ち寄って公園で手洗いし、まちなかに万国旗のように干すことで、個人的な素材で自分たちのまちを彩る。たらいや洗濯板をはじめ、給排水用のタンクを積んだ軽トラック、手洗いで奏でた音楽、洗濯物の風景を描いた水彩画、乾いた洗濯物を試着する映像など……。ワークショップの記録は、古くて新しい洗濯行為という生活文化の記録として再構成され、インスタレーションで展覧会場に提示された。

In Japan today, we take it for granted that laundry can be done using a washing machine. This installation attempts to re-examine laundry as a creative act that opens up our senses. Regarding laundry as an interface for the public and private, people take their laundry to a public park to wash it by hand and then hang it out to dry around the community like national flags, decorating the local area with something that is highly personal. A truck is loaded with a tank of water as well as tubs and washboards. Music is played as the participants wash their clothes by hand. Watercolor paintings are made of the laundry landscape. The act of people trying on the dried clothes is filmed. The documentation of the workshop was reconfigured as a record of the simultaneously old yet new way of living that is the act of washing clothes, and presented in an exhibition venue as an installation.