Toshi's Gift おくリもの

Materials: nylon, weights. Dimensions: 750 x 450 x 550 cm
b. 1940 Tokyo, Japan; lives and works in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam is one of the world‘s leading textile artists from Japan. The artist specializes in creating large, interactive textile installations that function as imaginative and lively explorations of color and form as well as stimulating spaces for play. Toshiko designs and produces her site-specific works together with her partner Charles MacAdam in her studio in Nova Scotia, Halifax. She works with a special nylon material she dyes herself and combines together through knitting, crocheting, and knotting to create her large-scale, organic installations. Her immersive installations can be seen worldwide, including in Hakone, Japan; San Diego, US; Rome, Italy, and now also in St. Pölten, Austria.

At the the KinderKunstLabor, the site of her latest work, Toshi’s Gift おくリもの, 2024, Toshiko is especially drawn to the direct views of the park and trees. Toshi’s Gift おくリもの is an interactive three-dimensional textile landscape made of hexagons, open pockets, and hanging pendulums crocheted by the artist herself. Children can climb upwards moving from pocket to pocket until they reach a large surface area where they can run, slide, jump, and rest. The rhythmic movement evokes the feeling of floating in the sea, stimulating the deeper areas of the brain and challenging the child’s vision, touch, movement, and balance.

Mona Jas