Aki Sasamoto's exhibitions explore chirality through snails, bars, and motherhood

Aki Sasamoto's recent works investigate chirality—natural asymmetries like right-handedness versus left-handedness—through installations and performances. Her installation Sink or Float (2022) transforms industrial kitchen sinks into air-hockey-like dioramas where objects including snail shells move via forced air. A turquoise feather on one shell references a drag queen's boa, allowing it to spin opposite others. The performance Point Reflection (2023), with live music by Alsarah and Matt Bauder, uses monologue to examine flipping realities, inspired by finding an anticlockwise snail shell. Sasamoto connects these ideas to everyday life, recalling in Delicate Cycle (2016) bird droppings and dung beetles' perspectives. Pregnancy and motherhood became content in Weather Bar Forecast videos (2021), where she describes bodily weather systems. The artist often incorporates bar settings, as in Wrong Happy Hour (2014), where she plays a barkeep navigating relationships. Her work blends structured improvisation influenced by club dancing and free jazz. Point Reflection is on view at the Queens Museum, New York, through April 7, while her solo exhibition Sounding Lines runs at Para Site, Hong Kong, from March 16 to July 28, with performances on March 15 and 18. Sasamoto, a Japanese artist, trades nightlife for time with her five-year-old son Ray but draws from party experiences. She argues for eccentricity's necessity, challenging scientific views on minority traits.