New York, 2023 – Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice is pleased to present Present Moment, a one-day experience with an audience-engaged installation by Eiko Nishida on view on June 29th, 2023. The performance features a special guest speaker, Reverend Cheryl Ikemiya from the New York Buddhist Church, who leads everyone on a participatory experience–Walking Meditation. The work completes itself with the audience’s participation, and it invites you to wonder about interdependence and perception in a unique space for being and meditation.

 

In Buddhism, a mandala is used to focus attention on practitioners and create a sacred space. This mandala comprises circular patterns of lotus petals, which signify the flower that rises through the mud to bloom. It can resonate with all the events we experience as audiences scatter petal-shaped papers in order to complete the work. Although Nishida has been a Buddhist since she was little, this aspect of her life was so innate that she did not recognize it as such. Being present at the moment is one of the core teachings of Buddhism. Nishida uses mundane but intimate material, newspapers, to make a mandala that embodies an accumulation of continuous being.

 

The work represents not only summed-up time but also an event and information that poses the question: What is the meaning of being at this particular, precious moment? You may imagine a myriad of time fragments from the past in the form of the numerous pages of the newspapers themselves, but the moment that you see and experience the artwork, it becomes very much a part of the present.

 

Reverend Cheryl Ikemiya will be conducting a participatory audience experience, namely the Walking Meditation around Nishida’s mandala work. Following this, she will share a short story from the Dharma teachings, and then audience members will share their thoughts as of today—at that precise moment in space and time. Everyone is welcome. 

 

Eiko Nishida is a site-specific installation artist and a social practitioner. Her installations are activated along with stakeholders in the venues where she works; they are often audience-engaged work. Nishida holds a Master's degree in Fine Arts from Hunter College, CUNY, in New York (2023) and a Bachelor's in Chemistry from Shimane University in Shimane, Japan (1998). Her work has been shown internationally, including Singapore Art Book Fair (2014, Singapore), Gallery idm (2013, South Korea), and Aichi Expo (2005, Japan), and featured by several publications globally, including Hyperallergic (2023, U.S.), AFTERGLOBE, (2014, Singapore), EFX Art & Design (2004, Sweden), among many others.

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