Motoi Yamamoto’s Poured-Salt Labyrinths in a French Castle

Motoi Yamamoto draws with salt — poured into lines so fine they read as thread, spread across gallery floors and then swept up when the exhibition closes. His show Univer’sel placed two works inside a 13th-century medieval castle at Aigues-Mortes in the south of France.

The medium carries the meaning. Salt is a preservative and, in Japanese mourning, an offering, and Yamamoto turned to it after his sister died. Choosing a material that must be destroyed makes every installation a performance of loss — which is why photographs never quite do the pieces justice.

More of his work: motoi.biz.