Yu Tanaka’s tsutsumimono — Shifting Boundaries, Changing the Way We See the World

Text：Ryohei Miki, Producer of Gallery Rin

Yu Tanaka 田中　悠

Born in Ehime in 1989 and based in Kyoto, ceramic artist Yu Tanaka creates the tsutsumimono series entirely by hand-building clay into organic forms that appear as though something has been wrapped in cloth. Her works have been exhibited in Japan and internationally and are held in museum collections.

When we first encounter Yu Tanaka’s work, what strikes us most strongly is the sense of a shift in perception.

It appears as though something has been wrapped in cloth. Yet what we are actually looking at is hard ceramic. Through our experience of the world, we have come to understand that cloth is soft and ceramics are hard. Tanaka’s work quietly disrupts this fixed perception.

There is something here that unsettles the way we classify material: What exactly is this?

But what makes Tanaka’s work particularly intriguing is not simply the way it blurs the boundary between two different materials, cloth and ceramic.

There is also an act of wrapping taking place.

To wrap something is to separate an inside from an outside, creating a boundary between the two.

In other words, within the work, one kind of boundary is being unsettled—the perceived boundary between cloth and ceramic, between softness and hardness—while another, between inside and outside, is simultaneously being created.

To disrupt a boundary while creating one at the same time.

These two seemingly opposing actions appear to coexist within Tanaka’s work.

And yet, what is being wrapped—the “contents”—is never clearly revealed.

We sense that something is there, yet we cannot know exactly what it is. The viewer is left to fill that absence with their own imagination.

To one person, it might appear to contain an object. To another, a body, a memory, a secret, or perhaps something deeply cherished.

In other words, precisely because the inside of the work remains empty or unknowable, something begins to emerge within the viewer.

The act of wrapping is also intriguing when considered in the context of Japanese culture.

In Japan, the acts of wrapping, covering, and enclosing objects have long carried meanings that extend beyond simple packaging. They have been associated with preservation, protection, gift-giving, etiquette, tea ceremony, ritual, and many other aspects of cultural life.

In practices such as shifuku, the cloth pouches used to wrap tea utensils, or the wrapping of gifts, the act of wrapping itself can express respect and consideration toward an object or another person. There are also cultural structures in which sacred objects are covered and kept from direct view, making their presence felt precisely because they cannot be seen.

Of course, it would be too simplistic to regard Tanaka’s work as a direct continuation of these aspects of Japanese culture.

Yet when we consider the many layers of meaning contained in the act of wrapping—to protect, to conceal, to contain, to convey, and to invite us to imagine what cannot be seen—the structure of tsutsumimono begins to reveal itself in a richer and more complex way.

After all, human beings create boundaries in order to make sense of the world.

This is cloth.This is ceramic.

This is myself.This is another person.

This is inside.This is outside.

This is nature.This is human-made.

This is the body.This is an object.

We understand the world by classifying things and establishing boundaries between them.

But are these boundaries truly absolute?

Looking at Tanaka’s work, a small sense of unease—ceramic that appears to be cloth—draws our attention to the way we ourselves perceive things.

We begin to notice that perhaps we are not simply looking at what is in front of us.

We are also looking through the accumulated experiences and assumptions that have taught us what things are supposed to be.

And once a single boundary shifts, even slightly, something that seemed familiar can suddenly appear entirely different.

That is why it feels somewhat insufficient to understand this work simply as an attempt to “break boundaries.”

Rather, tsutsumimono seems to quietly suggest that:

It is precisely because boundaries exist that, when they shift, the way we see the world can change.

And this is not simply a matter of ceramics.

The human body itself is divided into an inside and an outside by the boundary of the skin. Within that boundary are organs, memories, emotions, and consciousness—things that cannot be directly seen from the outside.

We can see another person’s exterior, but we can never completely know what lies within them.

The act of wrapping seems to resonate with this very condition of being human. We create boundaries to protect something. We create boundaries to understand something. And at the same time, those very boundaries create things that remain unseen.

Tanaka’s work seems to make this fundamental human act visible through the remarkably simple and primal act of wrapping.

By creating soft-looking cloth from hard ceramic, she unsettles our perception of material and form.

By wrapping something, she creates a boundary between inside and outside.

By withholding what lies within, she invites the viewer’s imagination.

And by shifting the boundaries of an object ever so slightly, this artwork changes the way we see the world itself.

Seen in this way, tsutsumimono can be understood not simply as a ceramic object that appears to contain something, but as a work that asks us to reconsider how we classify the world, how we create boundaries, and how we come to understand the world through those boundaries.

Perhaps what exists within the work is a kind of space—an absence left open.

And yet, the moment we look into that empty space, something begins to emerge within the viewer.