Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo): Fieldwork, 2009–2021 

digital C-type photographs 

Courtesy the artist & Akio Nagasawa 

Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations, 2022

hose, PET bottles, bucket, sponge, pump, acrylic resin

Courtesy the artist, Project Fulfill Art Space & Mother’s Tank Station Ltd.

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the Commonwealth through the Australia – Japan Foundation, which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Japan Foundation, Sydney and the Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation and assistance from the Nomura Foundation 

Tokyo-based artist Yuko Mohri is known for her sound installations and sculptures using readymade materials that explore connections between human-designed and natural processes.  

Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo) : Fieldwork is a series of photographs of makeshift water repairs found at train and subway stations across metropolitan Tokyo. Mohri began the series in 2009, when she noticed how station agents were creatively combining everyday objects and materials such as umbrellas, bags, water bottles, buckets, and plastic sheeting to redirect the flow of groundwater leaking through the municipal infrastructure.  

‘Around 10 years ago, when I had no money but a lot of time, I would buy a daily travel pass for the JR trains or the subway and travel to areas in Tokyo that I had never been to before. Strolling and wandering around, I observed the locations of water leaks at stations. The methods and objects used to stop the leaks varied depending on the stations or train lines. To me they looked like different approaches to sculpting – they were treasure houses of inspiration.’   

– Yuko Mohri 

Mohri’s photographs are a kind of ‘photographic fieldwork’ that continue to inspire her ongoing series of Moré Moré (Leaky) installations. For the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, Mohri has again looked to these photographs for her new site-specific installation at Pier 2/3 using found objects and everyday materials to respond to the architecture and surrounding water ecologies. 

Liquid Languages

Our pre and post exhibition learning resources Liquid Languages enable students to connect with the key themes of rīvus ahead of and following their exhibition visit. Liquid Languages encourages students to channel new knowledge from their experience of rīvus into local environments.