Chiharu Shiota's 'Two Home Countries' Opens at Asian Art Museum with Red Thread Installations

Chiharu Shiota's solo exhibition 'Two Home Countries' opened earlier this month at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, marking her first Bay Area presentation. The show features immersive installations, sculptures, video, and performance-based works that explore themes of memory, absence, and embodiment. A centerpiece is 'Diary,' an 88-foot pavilion installation where visitors walk beneath red yarn suspending handwritten diary pages from Japanese soldiers during World War II and German civilians in the postwar period. The exhibition previously had a successful run at the Japan Society in New York. Shiota, who lives between Japan and Germany, creates works that make emotional states visible, according to Asian Art Museum director Soyoung Lee. Chief curator Robert Mintz notes Shiota's interest in what remains after a person is gone, with 'Diary' bringing voices of individuals who never met into conversation. The titular work 'Two Home Countries' depicts two vacant metal houses connected by a dress-shaped sculpture of red rope, reflecting Shiota's own in-between existence. The exhibition runs through July 20, 2026, at 200 Larkin Street in San Francisco.