YUKAKO HIHARA
JAPANESE, BORN 19TH MARCH 1994
ANTI-GRAVITY
In Yukako’s opinion a people become truly conscious of their physical identity when they step outside, and shoes are the only wearable item that touches the earth providing that physical sensation which keeps us grounded to reality. Depending on how our shoes touch the earth our body and mind experience gravity – our key relationship with the earth – in different ways. Digital media are providing an extension of our own self nowadays, expanding our potential and making us progressively lose contact with the outline of our own body. Yukako is proposing shoes that challenge our traditional sensation of gravity – mainly by using powerful magnets embedded in the rubber soles – in order to transcend its ordinary meaning and turn it into a metaphor of how we are evolving in the digital era.