South Korean textile artists OMA Space have taken part in an exhibition at Le Mobilier National, Paris – Please Touch the Thread – that celebrates the meeting of ancient craft skills with cutting edge technology. Tree of Light from OMA Space is an interactive work that invites visitors to take a moment of silence. The exhibition is the result of an artists in residency program from Jacquard (part of Google ATAP) and Google Arts & Culture.
OMA Space: “Our creativity in contemporary craft with textiles has been constantly inspired by our will to create spirited works in connection with nature. Using the innovative contribution of Jacquard by Google technology, we wish to reconnect humans to their inner self through an immersive and meditative experience.”
“In the general context of growing stress and accelerated pace of our over-connected everyday lives, human attention is geared towards the outside with permanent interactions and dynamics dictated by the need to be available.”
“Tree of Light proposes to gear this attention towards the inside, to offer to people a space and a time, a capsule experience for recollection and reconnection with life’s essential state of awareness. Inspired by the circular slow walks of Zen Buddhist monks, our intention here is to create a contemporary ritual walk. We invite people to experience a walk, barefoot, in slow motion, observing and consciously feeling each one of their steps, and interacting with textiles, sound and light, through contact with their feet.”
“In a circling procession, people are guided by the light, step after step on a spiral path to feel a progression from rough to delicate sensation and from noise to silence. They finally reach the hidden centre where they experience an intimate and still moment of bliss into a bath of solar golden light.”
As well as artworks, OMA Space also create couture garments. Each piece is unique or in a very limited edition, handcrafted using high quality materials and designed with a timeless aesthetic with the hope that the wearer will wear their garment for a long time.
Find out more at www.omaspace.com