"futile, yet necessary"

Motoi Yamamoto. Forest of Beyond. Salt installation. 2011-12
Photo from http://www.motoi.biz/english/e_top/e_top.html.

Artist Motoi Yamamoto began using salt as an art medium in response to his sister's death. In his native Japan, salt is associated with funerals, with healing from grief, with washing sorrows away.

He has described his labour-intensive but ephemeral art as "futile, yet necessary."*

Isn't it all?


* from a video by the College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, on the topic of a salt installation by Motoi Yamamoto. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eLIJuQSOJis.