Network

At The Hammer, "The Network," by Chiharu Shiota - which is a vast construction of red string, making one feel as though one's inside a web of veins.  Her work is deliberately both architectural and ephemeral and site-specific; most of these huge webs are use the same blood-colored material, though occasionally it's white, occasionally a greyish-black. Sometimes she suspends sheets of paper in it that seem to be fluttering or floating - I wish I'd seen her 2021 installation at the big glasshouse at Kew Gardens.  Very many of them reference the body/ flesh/meat - in a transparent, and disembodied way - though it's not especially helpful to be told in the wall panel that in each of her works "the artist takes up a deeply personal, often existential question or concern, which becomes the contemplative motor for the planning and enacting of the project."  I guess since this is called "The Network," then she's meditating on connectivity? I'm sure I'll have no problem into turning it into a metaphor, soon enough ...