This double exhibition at the Hayward is something of a mixed bag, combining two artists with work that encourages involvement though of a very different nature. Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life is the stand-out here, a Japanese artist renowned for her installations where threads are used to create vast webs which refer to the ancient concept of the Red Thread of Fate, the idea that two people are destined to be connected in life through an invisible red thread. Shiota’s section here begins with you entering a room webbed with red where hundreds of keys dangle off strands. An open doorway sits at its centre, and walking through this spectacle is to feel the possibility of access to a new world. Yet that world beyond is a dark and disturbing one… or at least it is when it’s at its best.
If we are connected to someone, that’s romantic but also creepy — a trap. All these interconnected lives with keys to the future might feel sweet but Shiota’s work is fiercely ambiguous, with a fairytale eeriness that feels like you’ve entered the domain of an obsessive hermit who was abducted by spiders as a child.
