Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life – Making Invisible Human Connections Visible
Japanese artist, Chiharu Shiota’s large scale installation wraps Hayward Gallery’s top floor room from floor to ceiling. Red woollen threads cascade from the ceiling, entangle around an open wooden door, and form mysterious forests that preserve memories. Welcome to Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.
@urbanadventurerldn [BLOG POST IN BIO] You can visit two exhibitions for the price of one at Hayward Gallery 𝙔𝙞𝙣 𝙓𝙞𝙪𝙯𝙝𝙚𝙣: 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 🫀 This exhibition is featuring interactive elements, making it more family friendly. Xiuzhen uses second-hand clothing, household objects, concrete and food for her large scale installations. There is a giant heart that visitors can go inside and sit on pillows on the floor, a huge airplane wrapped in fabric and miniature cityscapes in suitcases🛩️🧳 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙪 𝙎𝙝𝙞𝙤𝙩𝙖: 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 🧶 Chiharu Shiota is best-known for her large-scale installations inspired by the Japanese Red String Theory (or Akai Ito). It’s a common concept in Japan that suggests that people are connected with invisible red threads that may tangle but never break. According to the theory, most of our meaningful encounters are inevitable because our lives are already connected even if we don’t know about it yet or we haven’t met yet. 📍 Where Hayward Gallery | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX (Nearest station is Waterloo station) 📆 When 17th February – 3rd May 2026 🎟️ Ticket £19 @Southbank Centre #haywardgallery #southbankcentre #contemporaryart #artexhibition #CapCut
Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Chiharu Shiota is best-known for her large-scale installations inspired by the Japanese Red String Theory (or Akai Ito).
It’s a common concept in Japan that suggests that people are connected with invisible red threads that may tangle but never break. According to the theory, most of our meaningful encounters are inevitable because our lives are already connected even if we don’t know about it yet or we haven’t met yet.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Chiharu Shiota was born and spent her formative years in Japan. She has lived in Berlin since 1996 where she studied art and painting. Following a vivid dream of her being inside a painting, she turned her attention to find how she could turn the flat canvas into a 3D palpable installation that can enwrap the space.
That’s how she started experimenting with woollen threads. When she left Japan for Berlin, she had to move nine times over just three years within the city. This resulted of her often waking up in the morning not knowing where she was.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
So, she began putting threads on her bed to create a sort of tangible boundary between dream and reality she could rely on.
Webs of Memories, Emotions and Human Connections
Photo: Urban Adventurer
During your exhibition journey, you’ll navigate through intricate tangled chambers of red and black wool.
Shiota often uses red colour for her installations, partly because it’s a symbolic colour in Japanese culture, partly because red has a deeply personal meaning to her.
Her floor-to-ceiling installations create mysterious chambers visitors can walk through feeling as though they were walking in a human artery or a womb.
Walking through the enormous geometric chambers, you’ll notice hundreds of old keys hanging from the above. Each key is part of Shiota’s collection, and each of them has its own story and meaning.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Shiota started collecting keys after a miscarriage in 2015 and her father’s death shortly after. She needed something to hold on during those depressed times; something small, something precious to her. That was when she started collecting keys.
Shiota’s art installations often involve everyday objects, including shoes, dresses and even beds.
One of the installations resembles a hospital room featuring white hospital beds, engulfed in intricate black threads. This eerie room is connected to Shiota’s early experiments with threads when she moved to Berlin.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
The next room is a forest of red threads cascading from the ceiling, poignant letters attached to many of them. Each letter addressed to loved ones, some are odes to a city, some express gratitude.
Those letters are written by real people.
Shiota and Hayward Gallery had shared a social media post before the exhibition asking people to write love letters in which they show their gratitude towards something or someone. Thousands of letters arrived. Many of those letters are now part of the exhibition.
Chiharu Shiota’s Threads of Life makes the complexity of human emotions and relationships visible. It enwraps us, swallows us and touches our souls.
Two Exhibitions for One Price Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen
Tickets to the exhibition start from £19 and that contains not only the Threads of Life exhibition by Chiharu Shiota, but you can also visit Heart to Heart by Chinese artist, Yin Xiuzhen!
Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Yin Xiuzhen and Chiharu Shiota share interest in creating artworks that are adventurous and experimental while using everyday objects.
Chinese artist, Yin Xiuzhen is also known for her large scale installations. The materials Xiuzhen uses include second-hand clothing, household objects, concrete and food.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart exhibition is featuring interactive elements, making it more family friendly.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
The first installation is an airport including a baggage carousel and a huge airplane wrapped in fabric. Each bag on the carousel contains a mini cityscape that the artist shrank into the size that fit into a suitcase. Those suitcases do not just contain mini worlds, though. Each is packed with Yin Xiuzhen’s memories and her concern about globalisation.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
The next installation is an enormous heart wrapped in red, pink and orange second-hand clothing. Xiuzhen’s interest in textiles began in her childhood when her mother worked in a garment factory.
Visitors can walk inside the heart where they can find pillows to sit on and spend time there. And maybe do even a bit of heart-to-heart with a friend.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Collective Subconscious (Blue) is another interactive artwork.
It’s a long minivan with 20 mini wheels on each side reminiscent of that caterpillar cake became popular a few years ago. The installation is wrapped in over 400 pieces of clothing. Inside, there are tiny wooden stools to sit on.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
The installation reminds the artist of the period of idealism of the 1990s Beijing. The artwork carries a serious message that will be understood for those familiar with the Chinese song “Beijing Beijing” by Wang Feng.
The next artworks is called Ruined City and it’s a poignant memorial of the old buildings of Beijing that were demolished to make space for modern buildings.
Photo: Urban Adventurer
The installation is made from old roof tiles and concrete pieces from buildings no longer exist. It builds a memorial using not only physical materials, but memories and traces of history those roof tiles and concrete pieces carry.
Practical Info
Photo: Urban Adventurer
Address
Hayward Gallery | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX
(Nearest station is Waterloo station)
Opening Times
17th February – 3rd May 2026
Mon: CLOSED
Tue – Fri: 10am – 6pm
Sat: 10am – 8pm
Sun: 10am – 6pm
Tickets
Book your ticket on Southbank Centre’s official website.
Adult ticket starts from £19 and it includes both Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life and Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart exhibitions.
Ready for your next adventure? Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold: The Exhibition is now open at NEON Battersea Power Station. There are over 180 original objects borrowed from the Egyptian Museum, including the wooden coffin of Ramses II.
Book your ticket with FEVER and use discount code ADVENTURERLDN10 to get 10% OFF!
