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Inoue explores the historical relationships between people and everyday domestic objects, which she finds most prevalent in the transient cross-cultural merging of the urban street market. Her installations of mundane objects create a space of meditative, temple-like serenity. Inoue examines the interface of spiritual purity and commercial corruption.
In past installations, she has hand-cast porcelain replicas of new or discarded domestic objects. Many of the objects, for example a small plastic, cartoon cat found on the street, are recognizable icons.
The cat is a good fortune totem placed near the cash registers of small businesses in Japan—it is also the cat of Buddhist folk tales that saved a monk’s life and inspired the cat replicas that are sold at temple fairs in pilgrimage towns. Inoue’s work interrupts the easy commodification and calls attention to the original intention and spirit of the object.
We see, even if the original purpose was that of a token, gift or icon, that commercial and cultural displacement for another use creates new forms of worship, and leaves a new series of relationships in their wake.