Sayako Sugawara is a London based artist working with photography, moving image and installation. Her work explores notions of memory and imagination through a poetic approach to stillness and movement.
Using photographic processes, drawings and actions in space, she strives to bring the past and the present together, creating new narratives with the objects and spaces encountered whilst questioning the very nature of memory. The practical process of making is very important in her practice, whether using the darkroom, drawing, or in action, all whilst playing with the scale of the space and the materials. This leads and informs the majority of the thinking process.
Sugawara’s exhibition is titled ‘Undercurrents’ as physical water flows are a constant theme, but it is also related to psychological/emotional undercurrents. The works from different series which will be in the show, are all tied to the tributaries of the Thames. The sources are mostly visible but others flow underground. For Sugawara’s newest works in the exhibition, the English waterways built and used in the industrial revolution, were a strong influence on the development of the artworks.
