Nicola Anthony

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KUALA LUMPUR BIENNALE 2017: sculpture at the National Art Gallery

Great soul is a sculpture created in 2014, which has been travelling the world ever since. It has been selected as part of the Field Trip Project exhibition, at KL Biennale.

There will be an artists and curators guided tour and collaboration workshop with KLSKETCHNATION on November 25th. The Biennale will be open until 2018... so do visit if you are visiting Malaysia!

Special thanks to Daisuke Takeya, the organizer and curator of Field trip, to Tan Hui Koon, the curator of this Biennale showcase, and Zikri Rahman and Amir Muhammad (Kura) for coordinating for the Malaysian chapter of the project.


More about: Great Soul, a traveling artwork by Nicola Anthony

VIDEO: Great Soul (2014) is created by contemporary artist Nicola Anthony, and will be shown at the KL Biennale 2017. 

Great Soul (2014) is a travelling sculpture created within a randoseru (a traditional Japanese children's backpack).


Great Soul responds to the trauma of environmental and social disaster in the areas affected by the 2011 earthquake in Japan. The artwork is inspired by Japanese folk tales, and the art of Kintsugi (金継ぎ, きんつぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, きんつくろい, "golden repair"). This is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

Within the randoseru, is a mirrored interior. Upon this mirror sits a half-dome of fragmented text, so that this divided dome appears to become a complete sphere. Upon the curved surface 100 pins are inserted, so that they radiate outwards. On the head of each pin sits a disk of paper, each paper circle is hand-cut from a Japanese photo print of the earth as seen from space. This results in a fragmented earth, hovering within.

Great Soul has been exhibited at the Vargas Museum of the Philippines, the Aceh Tsunami Museum Indonesia, Oil Art Space Hong Kong, and exhibitions in Jakarta, Singapore and Tokyo. As part of the travelling process, it is worn by local individuals who journey with it to the next location.

More info.

Kuala Lumpur Biennale 2017 - 2018

23 November 2017 – 31 March 2018

National Art Gallery, Lembaga Pembangunan Seni Visual Negara, No. 2, Jalan Temerloh, Off Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur 53200, Malaysia