Megumi Shauna Arai by Caitlin Lorraine Johnson
Art that aims to stitch an ethics of interconnection.
Megumi Shauna Arai is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working primarily in New York City. The first work of hers I encountered was Jeté Dō (2022), which involves fabric folded in on itself and stitched within a frame: a fiber painting. I couldn’t stop looking at it, as though the fabric was unfolding before my eyes. I spoke with Megumi while she was at a COMMONS / OPPES residency in the countryside of Chiba outside of Tokyo.
Caitlin Lorraine Johnson
How does the residency feel?
Megumi Shauna Arai
I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. That’s not always the case, so when that kind of awareness arises, I like to take note.
CLJ
You were working in London and Paris right before arriving at the residency. How do you stay grounded enough to make work while you’re traveling?
MSA
I think for me it’s a rhythm. Getting into a pace is really critical, and often that facilitates a marathon rather than a sprint. I mean, there are times when I’m sprinting too. I’m naturally more of a sprinter. I was never a marathon runner physically or psychologically, but being an artist, at least one who makes work the way I do, absolutely requires a marathon. Maybe because I’m not naturally oriented that way, I’ve come up with a lot of different tools and processes that help me. One of them is attuning to a rhythm. It often happens best when I’m uninterrupted.
CLJ
And when you say “rhythm,” do you mean the rhythm of a day? Do you try to eat or go outside at similar times?
MSA
Yeah, I am not a creature of habit, and that’s precisely why I have to have a map and a rhythm. It’s fluid and changes slightly, but there’s a map that I kind of ride during the wave of every day. It facilitates me being totally clear so I can just focus on making.
CLJ
The way you describe it sounds like dance and how once you have the choreography down, there’s more freedom of movement and expression.
MSA
That’s how I make work; that’s how I lead my life.
CLJ
What outside of your practice most influences your work?
MSA
Dancing at the club. When I got sober, I couldn’t do anything. I had to learn everything over again. It was all pins and needles. Everything was not just even uncomfortable; everything was painful. But the one thing I could totally do that didn’t have that pins-and-needles or crawling-out-of-my-skin feeling was dancing at the club. I didn’t train as a dancer or anything. I take dance classes, and I dance in other forms too, but what really encapsulates the experience for me is dancing at the club because it’s not about how good you are or if you’re doing the right steps.
CLJ
That makes a lot of sense: to get lost in a rhythm you don’t control as opposed to establishing one for work.
MSA
When I’m working, it’s blinders on, uninterrupted focus—but I can’t live my life with blinders on. That’s just one side of it, one part of the cycle. The other part is being in the world and engaging. Internal and external. They’re not separate.
CLJ
What excites you most about your practice? Or more broadly?
MSA
I think those living with the ethics of interdependence in mind. It more than excites me; it gives me hope.
CLJ
In terms of sustainability or community?
MSA
I mean all of it: human rights, the planet, other living beings. The reason I say “those living” and not “people living” is because there’s a lot of other things living, you know? If we’re talking about humans, then, yeah, those who are striving to live with the ethics of interdependence. I phrase it that way because it encapsulates everything.
CLJ
That’s such a beautiful way to think about things: if you’re looking at connections, nothing stays fixed.
MSA
I think it’s something that has taken more and more space in my being as things have become continually just so dire. It’s a big question, but I think it’s one that’s front and center.
CLJ
Describe your relationship with comfort.
MSA
I adore comfort. My first cup of coffee in the morning. A hot bath. Swimming in water naked. I love long, uninterrupted time with friends. No clock, no things to do. It’s such a joy. I love sharing meals with friends, which kind of goes hand in hand with uninterrupted time. Five-hour dinners.
“In general, I’ve led more of a nonlinear life, but mentorship and teachers in all different formats are really major for me.”
— Megumi Shauna Arai
CLJ
Describe an influential teacher or a lesson in art-making.
MSA
I didn’t go to art school. In general, I’ve led more of a nonlinear life, but mentorship and teachers in all different formats are really major for me. I was studying sociology and doing qualitative research around how embodiment practices were facilitating resilience in particular communities. My advisor, Professor Yung Yi Diana Pan, knew that I was an artist and was like, It would be amazing for you to continue and get a PhD in sociology, but I know you’re an artist. I accept that you’re an artist and that’s your career path. And she not only accepted it but was still so generous with her time and mentorship. I was able to see and deeply experience, through her facilitation, how much I enjoy research and writing. Having that multi-year experience with her has led to research becoming a really critical element to my practice.
CLJ
What piece of art do you return to regularly and why?
MSA
For the past several years, I keep circling back to Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, which is named for the Greek goddess of memory.
CLJ
Can you describe it?
MSA
Warburg was an art historian who did a lot of things, but his magnum opus is called Mnemosyne Atlas, which he never completed. It is essentially his life’s work. I talk and think about Warburg in the show I did last spring, Immanent Infinite. In that show, my reference point was Warburg’s very first writing, Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and “Spring”: An Examination of Concepts of Antiquity in the Early Italian Renaissance. He comes up with the idea of Pathosformel by seeing certain motifs and elements of these paintings as characters within themselves that are emotive. In particular, the one I reference is Warburg’s obsession with the folded and draping movement of fabric in all of these paintings, specifically The Birth of Venus and Spring.
In the Mnemosyne Atlas, he collected imagery from different time frames and geographies and put them together to prove there are enduring symbols and motifs that have an energetic translation from image to body, from work to viewer. They continue to arise in all sorts of civilizations, places, and times because of that intrinsic, energetic choreography, if you will.
CLJ
What music has resonated with you lately?
MSA
I’ve been in another deep dive with Alice Coltrane. That’s what I’ve been listening to this whole residency. In particular Eternity, Lord of Lords, and Journey in Satchidananda.
CLJ
Any writing you find inspiring at the moment?
MSA
I’ve been reading a text my qigong teacher suggested called Shen (spirit, soul) in Chinese Religion and Medicine by Elisabeth Rochat de la Valée. Specifically, I pulled this section that is important to me. At the end of the reading, she quotes Ling Shu:
When something takes charge (ren 任) of the beings, we speak of the heart (xin 心)
When the heart applies (yi 憶) itself, we speak of intent (yi 意)
When intent becomes permanent, we speak of will (zhi 志)
When the persevering will changes, we speak of thought (si 思).
CLJ
I’ll have to take some time with that passage.
MSA
This is why I’ve been continuing to revisit it because you just have to keep reading this passage over and over again. Who knows what it means? But it definitely means something.
CLJ
Describe a lesson you’re still learning.
MSA
There are so many things.
CLJ
Same; always so much to learn.
MSA
I see it less as a problem now, but I was so scattered when I was younger. I couldn’t narrow down a focus. It felt so overwhelming. I’ve always been interested in too many things. It felt like I would never get to a place where things would reveal themselves and not feel separate from each other. Some of the things that I’ve been interested in and continue to learn more about are coming into something like a constellation. And that’s only with time.
Megumi Shauna Arai: The Tongue is the Child of the Heart is on view at Nina Johnson in Miami until April 18.
