For the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in the UK, Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan) presents Grilled Diagrams, a major new sculptural installation and series of performances reflecting on the transformative process of cooking.
Through sculpture, performance and film, Sasamoto invites us to retune our perceptions of the extraordinary and the incidental. Everyday objects are repurposed in this expansive installation, while fact and fiction blur with autobiography in vivid and digressive monologues.
At the centre of the exhibition is a custom-built, fully functional, oversized griddle, inspired by street food carts and televised cooking shows. During four live performances taking place over the course of the exhibition, Sasamoto will manipulate a series of ingredients across the griddle's surface to produce a set of rapid compositions. Transferred onto trolleys following each performance and displayed in the gallery, these moments become tableaus or diagrams, as if illustrating a step in an unknown recipe.
The use of unusual ‘ingredients’ like lava rocks and crystals reflects Sasamoto’s interest in geological processes. The application of heat and pressure that occurs in minutes at the griddle mirrors the elemental transformations that unfold over millions of years during the rock cycle. Two flexible, silver ducts winding up towards the vaulted ceiling function like geysers or hot springs, allowing heat and moisture to escape.
Throughout the gallery, cooking utensils and other kitchenware are elongated and multiplied. Each signals intricate gestures like chopping, piercing and stirring that become automatic and unremarkable when cooking at home. Stretched somewhat comically across the space, these familiar objects are exaggerated and reimagined by the artist as tools for creating momentary images or sound.
Linking this new body of work to the ongoing concerns of Sasamoto’s practice, the artist's 2018 film Do Nut Diagram shows a diagram overwritten by acts of annotating, smearing and smashing. As these unexpected gestures accumulate, the diagram's intended purpose - to fix and clarify relationships - unravels.
Connecting the mundane with the monumental, the exhibition invites us to look again at the elaborate yet overlooked processes continually unfolding around us.
