Yuka Oyama
Germany/Japan
Helpers changing homes - Pillow Pendant
Materials - Plastic
Size Pendant - 2.36” x 2.75” X .8” (6 x 7 x 2 cm / width x depth x height)
Weight - 14.91
Physical NFT + 3D rendering (360° video)
“It does not matter how far I travel, I always bring my pillow with me when I know that I am spending a night. It does not have to be the same pillow that I keep over many decades. I buy new ones every now and then, but it has to be ‘my pillow’. Many of my friends think that is funny that half of my suitcase is filled up with my pillow. The first object that I unpack when I move is my pillow. The first room I start decorating when I move into a new place is my bedroom.”
Helpers changing homes - Headcover pendant
Materials - Plastic
Size Pendant - 1.38” X 3” X 2.17 (3.5 x 7.5 x 5.5 cm/ width x depth x height)
Weight - 17.5 Gr
Physical NFT + 3D rendering (360° video)
“I like keeping things that remind me why I am the way I am today. This is Hachimaki, a Japanese helmet scarf. I brought it with me to the Kaho’olawe Island, the trip that taught me that life can regrow. For the first time in my life, I felt accepted as a Hawaiian. I enjoyed my presence and felt strong.”
Helpers changing homes - turtles pendant
Materials - Plastic
Size Pendant - 2.76” x 3.15" X 1.18” (7 x 8 x 3 cm/ width x depth x height)
Weight 18.7 gr
Physical NFT + 3D rendering (360° video)
“I have lived in Auckland, NZ; Port Vila, Vanuatu; Invercargill, NZ; Alice Springs, Australia; Amsterdam, Holland; Greece, Christ Church, NZ; Wellington, NZ. Last year, I was house-sitting, staying in 12 houses in 7 months. These turtles were given to me by my elementary school teacher before leaving Vanuatu at the age of 8. She was an adult who really cared about me. She said, ‘You will be a very smart woman, when you grow up.’ The turtles represent that someone really cares about you and looks after you.”
About the artist
Yuka Oyamais a Japanese-German artist based in Berlin, Germany. Yuka’s artistic practice incorporates wearable sculpture, jewellery, video, photography, and performance. Yuka’s original training as a jeweller has shaped her interest to pay close attention to role of adornments and personal possessions – things that people carry with them on their body – especially how these items allow constructions and reconstructions of various representations of self. Yuka employs adornments and objects to elicit and express personal stories about a sense of home and a sense of self of nomadic people.
Yuka Oyama studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA (BFA in Jewelry); the Munich Art Academy, Germany (MFA in Sculpture and Art Jewellery); Oslo National Academy of Arts, Norway (PhD in Art and Craft). She is Professor of Craft (Jewellery Art) at HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design, University of Gothenburg.
Three pendants that Yuka presents at NFT NYC are memorabilia of the artwork HELPERS CHANGING HOMES (2018), which she created in Wellington, New Zealand. In this artwork Yuka investigates how personal possessions are a vital source of emotional continuity and stability in affirming a sense of home, especially in moments when people experience uprooting. In this artwork, she conducted object-based interviews with individuals who had experienced more than thirty transnational and national relocations. She then selected seven stories, translated the interview contents into wearable sculptures, and planned a performance that resembled a collective ritual to commemorate the experiences of uprooting. Her interviewees swapped their sculptures with another person like Hermit crabs would do in order to grow bigger.