Join Access Gallery on Friday, April 21, 2023, from 6 - 8 PM for an artist talk with Maki Teshima and for the opportunity to create a wishing knot that will be included in her large-scale public art installation Musubi. This installation will be installed along Alameda Avenue between S Marion St Parkway and S Lafayette Avenue in May, 2023.

Access Gallery is excited to present KoiNobori: Swimming Upstream, an exhibit of works created by artist Maki Teshima and her students. Teshima was the artist-in-residence at Access Gallery from September to November 2022. During this residency, she taught students how to dye fabric using natural materials such as food waste-onion skins, avocado pits, and indigo. The finished fabrics were then transformed into koi fish that will suspend from our ceiling in a meditative exhibition.

The origin of the Japanese word "koinobori” refers to carp streamers that are created and used in festivals during springtime to celebrate Children’s Day. Each koinobori resembles a koi fish and, as it is waved in the air and blows in the wind, it mimics the motion of a fish swimming vigorously. An old myth prevails that when a koi fish tried to swim upstream, it completed the impossible task and became a magical dragon. Thus, the koi fish represents courage and determination.

“Just as the Access Gallery teaches all types of people to be able to participate in the process of making art, I wanted to use this residency to give people a chance to make natural dye who otherwise would not have been able to without the Access Gallery,” states Teshima. “I am grateful for the help of Access Gallery to help their artists to swim upstream.”