ARTIST FILE

Bio

Shige Moriya is a video artist and curator. He has been in New York since 1993, initially working as an exhibition curator in Soho. In 1996 Moriya moved to Williamsburg and opened CAVE with painter Naoki Iwakawa. Since then he has been Artistic Director and artist-in-residence at CAVE, which is now one of the longest-running experimental arts spaces in Williamburg, Brooklyn. He has presented his video pieces both locally and in Germany, Japan, and Vietnam. His work has received funding from the Ford Foundation. Moriya's artistic work includes video installations, ambient boxes (which involve creating an atmospheric inter-media visual/sound/performance environment), and collaborative work with dancers, musicians and visual artists in theater and dance productions throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan and at Temple University in Philadelphia. Recently Moriya has been working on a series of two-dimensional drawings and print works; however, he works primarily as a video-based installation artist, creating installations that are often sculptures made of the movements of light.

Statement

When I stand out in a vast natural landscape, I realize that I am so small by comparison. I am in awe of the overwhelming life force of Nature. I can't discover even one appropriate word when I am engulfed by that kind of voluminous energy. Yet I respect it so much. When I create something, I always wonder if I can express even a trace of that depth. At the same time, I think that this kind of expression, which is possible through art, is better than language for a certain kind of communication. I'm a coward. Because I want to be stable all the time. But the world goes by and changes continuously. The world transforms until my standing point is instability. When I think I have found my place, the next moment it becomes a situation that is not appropriate for me. That's why I should start to look for this ongoing change. Because, while absorbed in this state of affairs, I become interested in the moment when my sense of direction is broken. From my perspective "sense of direction" is something I call morality, a custom, a rule, a standard, etc., which can fit me easily in this society. I am interested in the kind of creation that can emerge once the way of responding based on habits formed by social norms and customs is dissolved. Also, I'm interested in the kind of creation that can then emerge. For this reason, I am not limited to any specific medium for the process of creation. Sometimes I use writing, curating, or designing an installation. Talking to people, standing in the middle of the road, or going to a trip can be my means of creation too.