Mariko Hori

Mariko Hori
Mellowing the Corners
Commissioned for Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021

Mariko Hori is a Japanese visual artist based in Amsterdam. On her visits to Folkestone, she was inspired by The Zig-Zag Path, built in the 1920s from Pulhamite to appear as natural rocks and grottos on the face of The Leas Cliff.

Her work for The Plot, Mellowing the Corners, consists of newly made Pulhamite ‘boulders’, on three different sites: fake rocks that could be personified as ‘trying to act naturally’ to blend in with their environment. While the surface coating of the rocks on the Leas Cliff are now wearing away to reveal the inorganic rubbish used as bulking material, the boulders of Mellowing the Corners contain objects donated by residents – which will also begin to reappear over the next 100 years as the corners of the rocks are worn away by weather and human use.

Mariko Hori studied architecture, but was more attracted by the aesthetic aspects of the deterioration of buildings through ageing than she was by contemporary or innovative building techniques. She was particularly interested in the strong sense of an enduring existence that attaches to old buildings and artefacts.

In her subsequent career as an artist, her interests have revolved around the concept of ‘atmosphere’ and her installations often study alternative atmospheric experiences through modest yet intentional placement of carefully chosen objects to give texture to the space and time between structures.

Find more of Mariko Hori's work.