Chiharu Shiota: The web of time

Black wool in a web stretched across a museum gallery floor, with white numbers sitting in random parts of it. There's a path through it for people to walk through.

Chiharu Shiota: The web of time

The web of time, an installation by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, creates the vision of a night sky studded with constellations of numbers.

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When | Āhea

12 Dec 2020 – 14 Nov 2021

Where | Ki hea

Toi Art, Level 4

‘I want the viewer to reflect on their inner self, on their life – past, present, and future…’

– Chiharu Shiota

Enter a vision of the universe.

In The web of time, countless intertwined strands connect numbers across time and space.

These numbers – scattered like stars in the night sky – represent meaningful dates in history, both collective and personal.

Berlin-based artist Chiharu Shiota says, ‘Numbers comfort us. We share dates that are important to us, and they help us understand ourselves.’

The web of time is part of Te Papa’s permanent collection.

Chiharu Shiota, The Web of Time, Toi Art, 2020. Photo by Michael O’Neill. Te Papa

Discover moreKia kitea ake

Chiharu Shiota standing among The web of time

‘Because of Covid-19, numbers have become even more powerful’: An interview with Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota talks to Curator Contemporary Art Nina Tonga about the significance of numbers and colour, her beginnings in art, and what she hopes visitor take away from exploring The web of time.

Portrait of Chiharu Shiota sitting at her desk in her studio. Above her hangs the red frame of a sailing boat frame with red wool being threaded across it

About Chiharu Shiota

Read Chiharu Shiota’s biography.

Still from a video. It shows a large pavilion in the middle of a room, three scissor lifts, and multiple strands of black wool hanging from the ceiling mid-installation

Watch: Installing a Chiharu Shiota artwork

Hundreds of threads of wool. Multiple scissor lifts. Many, many hours. See the intricate details that go into installing an artwork by Chiharu Shiota.