TAMIKO THIEL | IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARIKO HORO

25 Jan-1 Dec 2026

Overview

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Floating through an archipelago of fragmented spaces, architectural forms unfold into multiple worlds, interweaving religious references in an atmosphere reminiscent of the sacred. With no visible human figures, the viewer moves alone through corridors and across suspended paths, as if navigating a deserted, mythical world.

The Travels of Mariko Horo (2006) was originally presented as an interactive 3D narrative installation. Users were invited to explore the virtual environment through the eyes of the fictional character, Mariko Horo, traveling through space and time in search of the “Isles of the Blest,” the Buddhist paradise said to float in the Western Seas. The project draws on historical periods when Japan was largely isolated from the West, and on the ways limited knowledge produced imagined, often fantastical visions of foreign cultures. By positioning the viewer inside Mariko’s perspective, the work can be seen as a meditation on the exoticizing gaze; it reverses the traditional Western viewpoint and reveals how fantasies of the “foreign” often reflect the viewer’s own cultural assumptions, projected onto the place imagined.

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