Yohji Yamamoto Making Waves

"A billowing silk dress with a bamboo crinoline hangs over a lake in the middle of a former power station. The dress' reflection, distorted by a boat's oar, depicts something ethereal, something other, something that though once a wedding dress, here becomes genderless. Those who experienced Yohji Making Waves at the Wapping Project, part of a London-wide commemoration of Yamamoto’s 30 years in Europe, were invariably humbled. To one of the exhibit attendants, the scene brings to mind the River Styx. This shrine-like space was engendered with further meaning when it opened on the day the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in late March. Sofia Saldanha communicates this added immediateness in this piece, artfully pairing reflections from the oarsmen and the director of the Wapping Project to affecting ambient noise." Sukey Bernard, The [Un]Observed.