When the semioticist Roland Barthes came to Japan, he decided to do what many foreigners do, which is to base his impressions of Japan on exactly that, his impressions. His book "The Empire of Signs" is ostensibly about Japan, but the author acknowledged (with no shame) that it actually was a collection of generalizations based on his outsider observations. It is a fabricated and imagined place that he describes.
Perhaps more than any country in the world, Japan is, as seen from the West, a land of projected dreams and desires. Even Japanese are nostalgic for Japan -- they are the biggest group of tourists in their own country. And a tourist is always an escapist and a magnifier of cultural signs. So when Turkish artist Ayse Erkman was asked to hold an exhibition at Galerie Deux, she followed a well-worn path by creating her site-specific installation around her notions of Japan.
"[Galerie Deux] had sent me photographs and plans and images of the gallery space, and I thought I should make something for the space -- the gallery being in Japan, in Tokyo. I was thinking of all this, and you know the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Japan is paper -- lightweight and soft. I thought of the paper lanterns," said Erkman.