Larger than us, the seven floor lamps fill and protect the gallery space, acting as flamboyant samurais. In Japanese, “mitate” signifies a multi-layered, comparative approach to otherwise familiar objects—allowing observers to contemplate an item with fresh eyes in order to renew one’s experience of it. With the collection Mitate, a game is played between the simplicity of the lamps and the sophistication of their Japanese forms, inspired by trips to Japan.
From these travels and through research of local craft knowledge, Studio Wieki Somers collected sensations, materials and images. For instance: the enigmatic XVIth Century Samurai flags whose designs identified clans and demonstrated their unique powers, the production and use of which was a highly ritualized affair. The studio finally created a contemporary equivalent of these historical flags translated into ‘light poles’ – a family of lamps, that symbolises the period in which we live.
