WOW’s original project “The Shape of Prayer” has opened to public. This is a research project in which WOW, which has previously published the installation works “BAKERU” and “POPPO,” which rediscover the traditional culture of the Tohoku region through contemporary expression, will produce an original work based on the information learned from fieldwork concerning traditional prayer and its form.

Since ancient times, people have experienced awe and gratitude towards invisible things and natural phenomena, and have coexisted with them by giving them various “forms.” When we look at the meaning of the shapes that remain today, we can see the rich spirituality of our ancestors. “The Shape of Prayer” is a project that aims for us who live in the modern world to gain new insights and discoveries by experiencing traditional culture, which we have become less aware of in our daily lives, through contemporary media expressions.


Project background
Prayer has been practiced in various eras and places since ancient times. Performing arts, crafts, festivals, paintings, customs, food, music, architecture. People's prayers have taken on various forms to spread to many people and have been passed down through time. Some of these forms reflect the characteristics of local culture, while others have a commonality that transcends time and place. There are many occasions of praying for something even today, but we don't often have the opportunity to become aware of the culture behind it. We decided to take a fresh look at the spirituality that has been passed down from generation to generation and the culture behind it through the forms of prayer that are still around us today.

Project Contents
We will conduct research and fieldwork on the themes “katashiro” (a human-shaped talisman), “patterns,” “mountains,” and “sake,” which have been associated with prayer since ancient times, and in the end produce four installation works. The entire process will be documented on video, which will be made available online as a video work. In addition, we have deepened our research on a wide range of topics concerning prayer in collaboration with Miyagi University DESIGN STUDY CENTER. The video work to be released online will also be sequentially shown at the Design Research Building of Miyagi University (public release is scheduled for this summer).

▶“The Shape of Prayer” Official website

An installation by art director Chie Morimoto, visual design studio WOW, and musician Takeshi Kobayashi, with the song of the same name as its motif.

WOW was in charge of directing and installing a space in which viewers experience the worldview poured into the song "forgive" while taking a stroll around it, with the gymnasium of the former Oginohama Elementary School that was closed in 2018 in the Momoura area of the Oshika Peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture as its stage.

“This is an installation created by the art director Chie Morimoto, visual design studio WOW, and musician Takeshi Kobayashi, based on the song of the same name. “While the song forgive was born when the ten-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake coincided with the extraordinary circumstances that people find themselves restrained by due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this collectively made installation aims to reproduce the song in a physical space. I hope that visitors will feel prayers and reverberations in an altruistic space attempting to overcome divisions, along with hearing the call ‘enya kora’ that motivates us to move forward toward the fluid and uncertain future.” (Takeshi Kobayashi)”

Exhibition period: August 11th to September 26th, 2021
Venue: Former Oginohama Elementary School Gymnasium, Oshika Peninsula, Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture

In the Tohoku region, there are old traditional folk toys such as “kokeshi” (wooden dolls) and “otaka poppo” (wooden toys with hawk carving). They are so familiar to everyone that perhaps we normally do not consciously think about them. But, the long tradition in the process of making these folk toys and the worldview they encapsulate are profoundly interesting.

At the POPPO Exhibition, there will be 3 new digital art installations created by WOW using our visual expression technology and based on what we learned from visiting workshops about the worldview wrapped up in these folk toys.

Interactive experimental artworks with themes such as “How do we express traditional worldview with modern technology?”, “Nowadays, if we were to play with traditional folk toys?”

We hope this exhibition will give you the opportunity to experience the world of traditional folk toys from a slightly different angle and rediscover the profundity of local culture.

An experiential video installation performance based on the motif of festivals and traditional events passed down from the history of the Tohoku region. This work allows one to personally experience the mysterious phenomenon of transforming into a non-human being. Building on WOW's interpretation, this work was visualized on the basis of four traditional event motifs: Namahage (ogre), Shishi-odori (deer dance), Kasedori (straw bird), and Saotome (young girl). As you face the screen, your silhouette begins to transform into each character, and the magnificent group performance begins to unfold through an animation projected on screen. It is a spectacle that allows you to enjoy and experience the mystic, eerie powers of transformation that will turn you into something new--something non-human. This is a performance that brings you in close contact with the traditional culture born from the spiritual atmosphere of the Tohoku region through a completely new type of expression, inspired by the desire to bequeath the value of such an experience onto future generations.

▶BAKERU official website

Exhibited at Carrousel du Louvre in collaboration with MIHARAYASUHIRO for Paris Fashion Week.
The motif, the 19 century painting “Ophelia” by Sir John Everett Millais, was photographed by Paolo Roversi, and then implemented into a visual installation. Through “shadow” interaction, we pursued an expression whereby the audience crosses between reality and imagination, like the world of “Ophelia” where life and death coexist.

About the Exhibition
The beautiful painting world of Ophelia was displayed on the wall. Expanding into the space where the audience is standing. The shadows of flowers ephemerally fall into the exhibition space, and then float into the picture on a carrying wind. The shadow reflects butterflies, forest and a river that should not be there. Impressions of light affect the picture. The tears that Ophelia sheds fall through the picture, as a window to the outside world, and disappear into the surrounding space.