12 minute audio narrative, 2 drawings, 1 ceramic tree and basin, and 1 replicas of omikuji (fortune) box from the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery collection, 2022

‘8 anew/M#’ responds to a set of mysterious objects from the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery’s collection that are archived with the letter ‘M’. The work raises critical questions around the practices of collections in public institutions, from acquisition to caretaking, as well as their continued function and purpose. These M# objects in the collection came to Queen’s University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Japan or other parts of Asia, without concrete records on their previous ownership or origins. ‘8 anew/M#’ specifically re-opens the omikuji (fortune) box found in the collections, which is traditionally used at Japanese temples and shrines to cleanse the bad luck of the past year away, and to bring in the new year with a fresh start. The box is usually filled with divination sticks — with a shake of the box, a single divination slides out to reveal your lucky or unlucky fortune. A lucky fortune paper is taken with you back home, but an unlucky fortune is tied to strings along the temples or to a nearby tree to disintegrate over time. 

Mochizuki’s work offers audiences an omikuji ritual in the form of an interactive installation, guided by oral storytelling. Set in the future on an evening of a torrential rainstorm, a woman sleeps through a fever dream to awaken to a clatter of thunder. An omikuji box appears at the foot of her bed, along with the floating Yatsu-Ikazuchi-no-Kami (the 8 thunder god), who offers a set of ritual instructions to purge a large fear caught in the heart of her belly. After listening to the story, audiences will be invited to shake the omikuji box and can either keep their fortune or place it down the hole at the basin of the small tree. The adaptation of this story considers methods of how we continue to care and carry with us rituals over time, while navigating new ways of co-existing in public and private space.