© 2024 Kyoko NAGASHIMA 　Dual　　　 　 "I think that we live in a world, this world, but other worlds are very close. You can climb across the wall and enter other worlds if you really want it."　　Haruki Murakami Passages When I first met Kyoko Nagashima I was both fascinated and interested in her work, which opens the possibility of going across the wall, of falling into other worlds. It is like drifting above a suspended world, like being out of time, reaching a state of somnolence. Through his writings, Haruki Murakami opens up new worlds. Through her work, Kyoko Nagashima creates passages to go "through the looking glass". She unveils the circulation processes between conscious and unconscious. "Paysages Oniriques" (dreamlike landscapes) could be my first definition of Kyoko Nagashima's work. The architectures of the set of photographs entitled There seem unreal, hanging up above our own time reference, reminding us of the spaceship in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kyoko's photographs are made using 3D lenticular acrylic material to produce a changing and vapourous effect, thus highlighting the notion of a hallucinatory, ethereal landscape. We are like swallowed up by the atmosphere, and invaded by the fragility of the supernatural in front of the holograms. We are ready to go through the wall. The absence of living beings in these spaces is all the more visible as our own shadow gets blurred by the medium. We lose our landmarks and sink into daydreaming. We also lose our landmarks when we walk through the series Tune, where a woman close to evanescence tries to find herself and wanders through a woody, shadowy landscape. The photograph's holographic process makes this character appear and disappear as we walk about. In the video the same character strolls about daintily in the forest, an infinite space, favourable for thought. When watching the video carefully we discover that the forest and the young woman do not reflect onto the same aquatic surface. In fact a two-section image is displayed in the video. Like two disconnected worlds. We walk through an indistinct and ever-changing passage across the border between these two worlds. This is clearly evidenced by the shifting and inversion effects that take place in the video. The video can be either projected onto the floor or to the ceiling. It is therefore possible to walk around the projected image and capture different points of view. In Spiral, two translucent women walk down two spiral staircases. They move around this suspended space, and this too demonstrates an initiatory experience, essential to one's construction and self-knowledge. The movement generated by the two flights of steps is disclosed by the two freely-strolling women. Here Kyoko chooses negative images which erase any visible mark of architecture and characters, leaving enough space to reflection and introspection. The states above are dealt with in a different way in the triptych video entitled Mirror. Two time durations are mixed together and superimpose, two worlds are side by side. the crystal chandelier, the urban landscape seen through a window, young ethereal women surrounded by multiple shadows. Kyoko Nagashima's world is highly sensitive, both light and intellectual. Being caught by the continuous movement that passes through her work we are deeply enthralled by her ethereal universe. Her clear, fluid language is a translucent way of telling us a story where things and beings can be but touched lightly, leading us towards the infinite depths of daydreaming and our own unconscious. Lei¨la Simon, Curator, Dual