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Haruko Okano

Since the mid 1990s I have changed the nature of my artistic practice and lifestyle to bring them into closer alignment with my concerns for the natural environment and our impact on the future of this planet. Although my art education was totally Eurocentric, I have broken away from traditional genres and begun to integrate methods and means that include elements from my Japanese ancestry, and holistic traditions common to many cultures in the world of hunters and gatherers. I am a process based artist, which extends my research and production time line considerably. I tend to use recycled materials, include more organic matter and to map my territory in search of the natural raw detritus I sometimes use in my installations. Collaboration is an earmark of my practice, whether that be in community developed art, working in tandem with other artists or in partnership with animals in their natural habitat. I may sculpt in salt and put it out in the forest for both weather and animals to add their markings. I may scout for beaver and include their delicate teeth marked twigs in such works as “The Window of Time”. I collect blossoms and slowly preserve them and their colour to be laminated over willow armatures creating large topiary sculptures. I try to close the psychological and physical distance between the art and audience by creating works that include their full sensory experience. I develop installations like “All Fall Down” that have a participatory aspect, inviting viewers out of their passive positions to literally add to the work or by unconsciously performing within an installation; they become part of the kinesis that animate and bring my work to its’ fullest potential. I am interested in the environment as a living journal that embraces a history of its inhabitants, their daily lives and use of the land. The “San Augustine Suite” was my travel diary that documented time, place and culture while I was in San Augustine, Etla, Mexico. The site specific installation “The Window of Time” sits on the edge of Crag Lake in the Yukon, open to the vista of mountains and forest on the other shore. Made of detritus Poplar, it has carved into the lower limbs, the phrase “Gone is Gone”. The Window of Time is an invitation to witness the change in climate, the boreal forest and to contemplate on the choices we make.