Elephant, elephant
2025
Site-specific installation
Banana plants, butterfly specimens, bovine bones
microwave oven, beetles, soil, projector, epoxy resin
The person living in this room has never seen an elephant. He wonders what an elephant looks like and what kind of sounds it can make.
A microwave oven, stripped of its heating function, spasmodically rotates its turntable. Inside, a rhinoceros beetle trembles and falls with each jolt. The microwave emits the tinkling melody of a music box — a slowed-down version of the Japanese nursery rhymes “Zō-san (Elephant)”.
(The song’s lyrics roughly translate as:
“Big elephant, elephant,
Why is your trunk so long?
Did it grow longer because you like to tell lies?
No, no,
My trunk has always been like this —
Mother says a long trunk is beautiful.”)
At the innermost end of the room is a dead end. There, a luminous dead rat emits a thunderous elephant call. Its body seems to breathe with the volume of the sound, pulsing brighter and dimmer in response.
On the side of the passage, there is a carved opening that looks out toward the jungle. The wind passes through here, gently lifting and swaying the scattered butterfly wings lying around.
In one corner of the room is a corpse-dissolving pool; you have to climb a few steps to see inside it. From beneath the pool comes the faint sound of trickling water.