Pont du Gard — Exhibition at Arsukumonoi, Kagurazaka

Kanako Ikegaya presents new collage works at Ars Kumonoi — an antiquarian bookstore in Tokyo's Kagurazaka district — alongside a small collection of Gleichenia's pate de verre glass jewelry.

The collages draw inspiration from the Pont du Gard, the ancient Roman aqueduct in southern France — a structure of 40,000 stacked stones that carried water across 275 meters, built to nestle against the natural terrain rather than dominate it. The three-tiered arches, the carved Roman numerals, and the ingenious design for distributing water pressure all inform the works.

But the Pont du Gard is more than an architectural subject. It connects to the ideas that have driven Gleichenia's work from the beginning: journey, water, and bridge. These are the same themes that emerged in ROWING A BOAT — the installation where we found a bridge and the start of a river, and imagined rowing out from there. The Pont du Gard is itself a bridge built to carry water — a structure where journey and flow become one.

Three thematic concepts guide the presentation: "water mirror," "gradient," and "bridge irrigation" — the flow of water that circulates through time, given new form through collage.