TORII, 2024

TBD Materials

Marking a space for gathering and reflecting on the presence of those with us and those who came before us. 

Matthew Okazaki’s TORII is a site-specific sculpture consisting of one fully built Torii Gate along with fragments of a Torii Gate scattered in a small cluster designed for gathering. In traditional Japanese culture these gates are located at the entrance to a Shinto shrine, marking a passage from the secular to the sacred, and are still used this way today. They are often painted vermillion, a color that holds great reverence in Japanese culture. Torii Gates mark a transition from the grounded, earthly world to the spiritual one, a portal from one realm to another. This artwork is influenced by their original function, opening a portal into Lot Lab and functioning as a threshold from the Charlestown Navy Yard into this site for reflecting on the complex and diverse histories that make up people and places. TORII aims to rectify the loss of meaning and cultural heritage underlying the nearby Marine Barracks Torii Gate, which offers no bodily or spiritual passage due to its inaccurate scale and color.

An architect by training, Okazaki’s work centers around a creative practice of “making do.” He emphasizes place-knowing and archival research in his practice, recently investigating the resilient spirit of domestic interiors in Japanese-American WWII incarceration camps, which the artist’s own grandfather experienced as a child. Through the philosophy of “making do” Okazaki calls attention to tactics of adaptability and embraces ordinary materials for the creation of new meaning. This is why TORII is made of readily available construction materials–concrete, recycled wood, rebar, and rope– and conveys a state of incompleteness and timelessness, much like how our memories or heritage can sometimes feel fragmented. TORII folds past and present, longing and belonging, into one place. It welcomes not just ourselves but our neighbors, our ancestors, and the stories we cannot see but that are present all around us.

Local artist Maria Fong has designed interactable paper charms that are attachable to TORII’s vertical columns. They are inspired in form by zigzag-shaped paper streamers called Shide, which are found on Torii Gates and in Shinto ritual. Visitors are invited to engage with a Public Art Ambassador for their own charm to share written or drawn responses on the prompt “Where is your community? Who or What is an important presence in your community?”