Yuken Teruya’s Notice-Forest: What Victory Tastes Like

Above:

Yuken Teruya: Notice-Forest: What Victory Tastes Like / London, 2012

Physical description: 

 Here, Yuken Teruya has created the effect of diorama characterizing a small tree, which, as indicated by the red and yellow print of the paper, looks like it is turning colors in autumn. The tree is set on a blue trunk and branches and seems to be made of the paper surrounding it, as indicated by the hole created above the tree.  Furthermore, this tree appears to be perfectly stable and high standing within this commercial paper bag, as though it has actually formed roots below the perceivable surface. This almost translucent material out of which the white paper bag is made reveals some easily recognizable red and yellow logos found on its outer surface: those of the McDonald’s food chain and the Olympic Games. The hole formed from the cutting of the tree allows some light to fall inside the paper bag, leading to the formation of graceful shadows featuring the shape of the standing tree. Clearly, Teruya has completely reconstructed a disused object into a carefully cut installation, which provokes a highly aesthetic response from the viewers: an effect partly created by the contrast of the extremely colorful nature of the tree and the achromatic, dull, inner surface of the commercial paper bag.

 What is the meaning of this piece? 

Teruya’s Notice-Forest: What Victory Tastes Like displays a distressing contrast between the interior and exterior of the paper bag, between the familiar, the known and the undervalued everyday (represented here by the exterior: the commercial paper bag) and the unexpected, the metamorphosis, the beautiful (indicated by the interior: the tree). While discovering, for the first time, such a graceful figure enclosed by a comparatively grotesque coverage will bring about a great emotion of surprise within the viewer, a more thorough look at this artwork will communicate its emphasize on the coexistence between the natural environment (characterized by the tree) and the architectural space (indicated by the confined, geometrical and more rigid structure of the paper bag). This piece of art could hence stress the idea of the expanding global corporations overpowering the natural world and its resources: a reasoning transmitted by the way in which the bag envelops, almost traps, the tree in its clutch. It must be noted, however, that there is a hole carved from the sachet, just above the paper tree: whereby this natural figure is allowed to breath, to persist with its life. This depicts the companies’ dependence on natural resources, McDonald’s dependence of this tree to create the paper bag distributed to its costumers. Clearly, the artist is trying to remind us of the origin of this paper bag and how we disassociate ourselves from the fact that an enormous number of splendid trees are cut down everyday to create such repugnant food containers. That is to say, Teruya directs our attention to the presence of ecological imbalance. With reference to the process involved in making this artwork, Teruya, by recycling and using a rejected object, demonstrates a great respect for the environment and discards the everyday, habitual practice of consumerism.