Celebrated around the world for her spectacular installations made of woven thread, the Japanese artist suddenly had to call a halt to her constant travels, staying put for the first time in over 15 years. In isolation in Berlin where she has been living for many years, she has experienced this momentary stop as an echo to many of her familiar themes: immobility, silence, seclusion and the uncertainty of destiny.

An artist who has long been haunted by the question of the invisible ties between beings, illness and transcendence, she reveals in this new exhibition a novel approach to sculpture. Using doll’s houses, miniature furniture and window frames, her recent work plays on the notion of scale, recollection and our secret bond with everyday objects.

In response, a series of new drawings created in the solitude of the deserted studio, stage relationships between enigmatic figures. Trapped in accumulations of waves or spirals, spectral characters seem interlinked by red or black threads, a metaphor for the ties between spirits.

Chiharu Shiota manipulates these miniature worlds, seemingly frozen in time, both reassuring and unsettling, to invite us to meditate on this last strange year. As she explains: “We are connected, since we are all in the same situation. Everyone is sitting at home looking at their furniture and asking questions about the outside world, which right now has been reduced to a mere memory.” She takes a bittersweet approach as she examines the codes of a living space that has been drastically curtailed but is already, maybe, brimming over with possibilities for inventing the new.