Offering

2024

thread, glue, dried kelp, dried ginger root, apple seeds, dried plum, rice grains, aluminum, steel

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[excerpted from Ravelling Seams, Massy Arts Society exhibition text by Faune Ybarra] Sena Cleave’s woven netting sculptures put into tension sonaemono (offerings) exchanged between diasporic Japanese communities. Dried kelp, apple seeds, orange peels and rice are woven using butcher’s and poly rope — strings commonly used to tie food and level brick assembles in a construction. In this fashion, Cleave offers their ancestors a home, a home where the thread and gifts hold each other in place while leaving space for the

in-betweenness spanned from this bonding gesture.

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