2013

TOMOKO HAYASHI “TEAR MIRROR - JEWEL" 

Tomoko Hayashi is a multidisciplinary artist/designer trained in traditional Japanese fabric dyeing and fibre art in Kyoto, the centre of beauty, culture and tradition in Japan. This background imbues her creative work with a strong sense of Kyoto's aesthetic and philosophical values, which explores the use of the five senses and digital media to enhance the intimacy and human connection facilitated by contemporary communication technologies. 
She also studied at the Central Saint Martins in London and collaborated with the MIT Europe team on various projects, which have been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Her work reflects her nomadic nature, having lived and worked in five different countries, places where she has been exposed to various cultures that together fuel the unique essence of her work. 

With the work “Tear Mirror - Jewel”, Tomoko Hayashi focuses on human emotions like sadness, melancholy, commotion and happiness, all those emotional states that are connected with crying. She sends out an envelope that includes a letter pad, a lacrimarium —a small tear-collecting ampule—and a colour palette sheet with a monocle sticker to people all over the world, inviting them to collect their tears and record the stories behind them. 
She considers “tears as private, intimate and mysterious substance that we shed from our eyes” as a theme and material for the work in which she collects stories and memories of people, as well as their tears, out of which she is creating crystal-like pearls which can be worn as jewellery, but not only. 
Through the process of crystallisation of teardrops and sugar, she makes “Japanese traditional sweets called Kohaku (amber) which can be tasted, worn and shared with our loved ones.” Therefore, these candy diamonds became a new way for understanding the notion of preciousness, far away from any conventional materialistic connotation. 
It’s the preciousness of emotions and human relations that this work underlines, subverting the common idea of adornment as something which belongs to the realm of the superfluous.

https://www.tomokohayashi.com