Mia Kanazawa Artist Statement
Mia Kanazawa on right with Alison Chase at the quarry.
I am interested in exploring what it means to find a place in the world. This can mean looking at how the shapes of the objects that occupy a place fit together: trees-rocks-lizard. It can also mean noticing the juxtaposition of clashing rhythms and sounds: the soaring of a flock of birds, the pecking of a group of chickens, the passing sound of a car radio. Then there is the lovely sameness and balance of days versus the excitement but also unease of the unexpected and of change. Of course then there is how humans fit in; how our presence, industry, basic and not so basic needs for shelter adapt and affect everything around us. We exist and we clash with the other complex elements of the world. This project is a unique opportunity for me to explore the simplicity AND the complexity of this world. I take what is there; heighten and enhance; and throw it all into the bottom of the quarry. In the first installment, I populated the quarry with children as floating milkweed seeds; the band as slow-moving snails; dancing spruce tree puppets; large foam-granite blocks that glacially drifted across the space; granite girls in hot pink tutus; and Cableman, the old abandoned rusty cable come to life. The 2010 production, Q2: Habitat, will be a story of the tug of war between diverse populations that call this place home. A central tree, surrounded by quarry detritus and granite, houses a porcupine who watches the world go by from up in it: the antics of the flock of seagulls, a parade of brightly colored bugs. When truckloads of workmen arrive and begin constructing a house, he springs into action. His tree becomes a crane which he uses to bring to life the detritus around his home. Together they defend their patch of ground.
Mia Kanazawa uses handmade felt, fabric, float billets, pipe insulation foam, and sippy straws, to create one of a kind theatrical and sculptural objects. She has constructed giant puppets for the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Meredith Monk, David Rousseve, Urban Bush Women, Festival Quartier d’ete in Paris, as well as for museums and galleries.
She uses her creations in her own productions, including a solo Vulva the Great for the “Vagina Monologues” and Come...stay...go, a dance and puppet piece commissioned by the Stonington Opera House in 2003. Mia’s early work investigated the nuances of the shapes, time and currents of ones inner landscapes, and more recently has been interested in her outer surroundings - populating the rocky hills near her home with fetal elephants and last year the Settlement Quarry with Cableman and his friends in Quarryography.