LOKO GALLERY is delighted to present Liminal Acts | 境界行為, featuring Teppei Yamada (b. 1979) and Yuka Mori (b. 1991).

Teppei Yamada engages in a multidisciplinary practice that bridges the center and the periphery, traversing fields of philosophy, science, and aesthetics. Through sculptural works employing diverse media – ranging from moving images, sound, photography, and text – Yamada interrogates the intersections of the unconscious and conscious, sensation and cognition, to probe the multiplicity of existence. His work critically examines the interrelations of self and other, society and nature, tracing and illuminating the residual imprints of events within these phenomena.

Rooted in Nihonga (traditional Japanese painting) as her foundational discipline and informed by the influence of Buddhist art, Yuka Mori’s practice explores the interplay between bodily perceptions and the surrounding environment. Engaging with the fluid and ever-changing dynamics of these interactions, her paintings resonate with sensory realms that transcend the visible. Drawing inspiration from the metamorphosis of plants and the traditional Japanese performing art of Noh, Mori’s picture planes reveal distinctive forms as she delves into the intricate relationship between figure and ground within the framework of Nihonga.

The term “Liminal,” as referenced in the title of this exhibition, is derived from the Latin word
“limen” (threshold) and denotes an intermediate zone found at the intersections of physiological, psychological, and spiritual boundaries. Often tied to anthropological theory, this term also encompasses qualities such as the unsettling chaos that arises from the overturning of binary oppositions, as well as hybridity, indeterminacy, heterogeneity, and marginality.¹ This intermediate boundary signifies, namely, an “undifferentiated” domain. Cultural anthropologist Viveiros de Castro refers to this state as a “between” : a mode of existence in which intensive differences persist, eluding reduction to typological categories such as similitude, opposition, analogy, or identity. This apparatus nature appears to resonate with the concept of the One and the Many, maintaining a non-reductive reciprocal balance,² where the one is neither absorbed into the many nor reduced to an equivalence or dominant identity.

In the new series for this exhibition, entitled Bones and Expansion (2024), Yamada continues his investigation into the interrelation between the body, sensory organs, and media, exploring the reciprocal dynamics of Inclusion. The triptych work from the series employs plane perspective, featuring three- dimensional brass-framed structures, within which the contours of planar forms evoke organic forms. Drawing inspiration in part from Francis Bacon’s space-frames—devices Bacon described as an exploration of painting through sculptural thinking—this work embodies the inversion of sculptural elements and tactile qualities, transposed into two dimensions. The dual-layered structure contrasts the outer frame, which metaphorically mirrors human-constructed systems such as social orders, regulatory frameworks, and the logic of justice, with its inner plane. The inner plane, in turn, consists of two distinct elements: clouds and flames captured through multiple exposures, and varied contours derived from identical seashells, which serve as residual traces of ocean currents and their fluid dynamics. The addition of lenticular lenses to the surface of the inner plane enhances the translucency of the field of vision,³ requiring the viewer to engage with the piece through spatial distance and perspectival engagement. As the observer alters their viewing angle, the piece shifts and distorts, continuously transforming its phases. Within these seemingly abstract planes, Yamada also envisions an extension of consciousness and corporeal forms of diverse life. The spaces of the triptych’s frame remain “open,” as he asserts—within this “in-between”, in its openness, an intermediary realm appears to lie – a domain of intensive relations and continuous transformation.

Since 2019, Mori has focused on plant-themed paintings, developing a practice that examines individual living entities as subjects while also considering the entirety of the spaces they inhabit, approached through an embodied corporeal perspective. Within these compositions, heterogeneous entities and fragmented existences intricately interweave, at times evoking tubular or visceral forms while their contours dissolve, converge, or become fluid. In her latest work Rhizome (2024), Mori engages with the site-specific ecology of a pond densely populated with water lilies, investigating the interplay between surface and submerged dynamics. The composition contrasts the visible flower anchoring the limited top of the canvas, with the intricate, unseen proliferation of stems beneath the water that dominates the remaining canvas. The multiple stems intertwining below the single flower tremble and sway, intersecting with anthropomorphic forms of existence—resembling the maternal and corporeal—depicted at the center. These undifferentiated landscapes of her works resonate with Japanese animistic thought, which expands the Buddhist boundary between the sentient (conscious beings such as humans and animals) and the insentient (unconscious entities such as plants) into the broader realm of nature. They also draw parallels with Noh plays, such as Basho, which explore the continuity between humans and flora, transcending conventional boundaries of being.

While there are evident differences between the two – in their artistic mediums, as well as in their personal trajectories and generational perspectives – if one seeks to articulate the shared elements of their thinking and practices within the phenomenon of “liminality,” it can be framed as an exploration of deviation, hybridity, expansion, and transformation. In a world where contrasts such as the organic and inorganic, inside and outside, and natural and artificial coexist, their practices are driven by forces of flux and cycles, seeking sensory forms that carry a sense of vitality and resistance. At times in dissecting gestures,⁴ these bodily (or body-like) forms oscillate, twist, sometimes protrude, and distort. Such imbalance might be understood as a perspective where change evolves through its own process of transformation, driven by a pursuit of deep differentiation within the continuous flux, ultimately moving toward a state of becoming.

( Noriko Yamakoshi | Curator )

Noriko Yamakoshi | Independent curator and writer. Recent exhibitions include Choreographing the Public (2019–2020), Games. Fights. Encounters (2020–2021), Hiroko Kubo (2022–2023), and Kei Uruno (2024). Co-author of la_cápsula – between Latin America and Switzerland: An Exploration in Three Acts (2020) and the interview essay <MJ> Yuichiro Tamura (2019), among others.
She holds a Master’s degree in Curating from Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.

1. In this domain, the following references address the sensory experiences that arise between the visual/performing arts and the audience:
The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics, Routledge, Erika Fischer-Lichte, 2008; Liminal Acts, Cassell, Susan Broadhurst, 1999.
2. <Kitaro Nishida and the Monadology> “Intersection (Chiasme) and Human Beings” Takashi Shimizu, Gendai Shiso, Seidosha, 2015
3. Here, several paths may lead to an understanding of its tactile qualities. For example, in the works of Francis Bacon, the comb-like brushstrokes disrupt the canvas. Also, blurs, low resolution, textures, and visual obstructions are explored in relation to the viewer through Laura U. Marks’ concept of ‘haptic visuality.’ As well as that, in De Anima, the medium is viewed as something that intervenes in the space between, acting as a mediator.
Laura U. Marks, in Deleuze, Perception, Image: The Emergence of Cinematic Ecology, edited by Kunihito Uno, Serika Shobo, 2015.
4. The anatomist Shigeo Miki serves as a common reference point for both artists. Mori frequently refers to Miki’s description that the structure of plants is akin to an inverted version of the human intestinal tract in her own practice. Additionally, in works such as ‘Inside Out’ (2016/2023), Différence de nature (2021), and Pulse (2022), Yamada has explored the connection between biological peristalsis and the heartbeat, using visual and tactile methods to make the heartbeats of diverse individuals visible and tangible.

ARTIST PROFILE: TEPPEI YAMADA​​ Yuka Mori