About the project
The Spaces Between is a digital exhibition concluding two weeks of intensive creative research at The Space Department Residency in Nara City, Japan. Our time in Nara coincided with Obon, a period when the boundary between life and death is believed to thin. We sought to understand Obon through its practices and atmosphere, considering how it relates to memory, ancestral return, liminality, and impermanence. Recurring themes in both of our practices.
We were equally drawn to Japan’s ancient past, particularly the enduring presence of the Kofun burial mounds and haniwa figures, whose enigmatic forms continue to resonate with mystery and meaning. Guided by the spatial philosophy of ma and the notion of liminality as a threshold between places, we approached Nara as a site of both return and rediscovery, searching for traces of these concepts in our daily explorations.
The animations presented here are responses to the questions and observations that emerged during our research. Each work is connected to a specific site within Nara Prefecture (and one in Osaka), places that revealed something to us that demanded closer reflection. Taken together, they form a map of uncharted liminal spaces, an exploration of life, death, and the in-between.
Special thanks to
Space Department, Nara
The Museum, Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture
Atsushi Uemura for the herons featured in Bird Island
Tower of the Sun, Tarō Okamoto
About the artists
Anna Stroud is a Northwest Arkansas native, with familial roots extending to Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico. Her work explores ancestry, tradition, and grief through painted pottery influenced by imagery found on her great-grandmother’s works. With the recent loss of her grandmother, she is intent on reconnecting with family roots and preserving tradition within her studio practice. Anna holds a Bachelor of Art with an emphasis in Drawing and Painting from the University of Arkansas
Chris Schultz is an artist and educator based in Northwest Arkansas. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Central Oklahoma in 2018 and his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Arkansas in 2021. Schultz's work covers a variety of media including works on paper, video and animation and object making. Themes explored within work include the ephemeral nature of time alongside the lightheartedness of play. Schultz is a faculty member of The University of Arkansas School of Art and co-founder of Pond Gallery in downtown Fayetteville, AR.
