aki inomata swaps human hair with her dog to exchange fur coats

aki inomata swaps human hair with her dog to exchange fur coats
all images © aki inomata

as an exploration in the relationship between pets and their owners, japanese artist aki inomata has exchanged a human body part — in this case hair — with that of a dog. after carefully collecting both the fur of ‘cielo’ the dog and her own locks over a few years, she gathered and assembled the strands into hand-woven clothes, so that the two would literally be exchanging coats.

aki inomata and cielo

‘I wear the dog’s hair, and the dog wears my hair‘ is comprised of a video installation and the two articles of clothing: an over-the-shoulder caplet and a dog’s outerwear. ‘I have had various pets, and do so now as well.‘ inomata explains ‘I believe that all people who have pets wonder at some point whether their pet is happy, and I face the dilemma of whether it is right to make a living creature into a pet. within this context, I have had these animals appear in my artwork. my works take as their starting point things that I have felt within everyday experiences, and transplant the structure of these experiences analogically to the modes of life of the animals. the concept of my works is to get people to perceive the modes of life of various living creatures by experiencing a kind of empathy towards them.’

stills from the ‘I wear the dog’s hair, and the dog wears my hair’

large bundles of collected hair have been gathered for the project

the artist hand-weaves the strands of hair into clothing

before and after: cutting the hair vs. the ‘coats’ made of fur

installation views at HAGISO, toyko

the dog’s cape made of human hair

the human cape made from dog’s fur