Forest of Numbers

In the latest Emmanuelle Moureaux’s installation more than 60,000 numbers from 0 to 9, made of paper, were suspended and regularly aligned in three dimensional grids.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, last January the National Art Center Tokyo has presented the activities of the past ten years in the Special Exhibition Gallery room, superimposed with the large installation Forest of Numbers designed by Emmanuelle Moureaux to symbolise the next 10 years to come.

Without any partition walls, the 2,000 square meter white cube exhibition room became a canvas of the installation, filled with 100 colours, inspiration and emotion, which became the largest installation of Emmanuelle Moureaux’s work. Forest of Numbers was meant to visualise the future, from 2017 to 2026, creating a sense of stillness across the large exhibition space. More than 60,000 pieces of suspended numeral figures from 0 to 9 were regularly aligned in three dimensional grids. A section was removed, created a path that cut through the installation, invited visitors to wonder inside the colorful forest filled with numbers. The installation was composed of 10 layers which is the representation of 10 years time. Each layer employed 4 digits to express the relevant year such as 2, 0, 1, and 7 for 2017, which were randomly positioned on the grids.