Aki Inomata: I Wear the Dog’s Hair, and the Dog Wears My Hair

Aki Inomata 14Aki Inomata is a Japanese artist who collected the hair of a dog called Cielo and her own hair over a number of years, spun and wove the fibres and then made clothes out of her hair for the dog and out of the dog’s hair for herself so that they would be ‘exchanging coats’.

This is a piece of work,  she says that “examines the relationship between a human and their pet, and gives form to this concept”.

The work has been presented as a video installation and as two garments at Hagiso gallery Japan. The following images are stills taken from the video and more work can be seen on her website.
Aki Inomata 01Aki Inomata 07Aki Inomata 09-1Aki Inomata 10Aki Inamoto 12

Aki uses the following quotes  and continues with this statement

Anyone who likes cats or dogs is a fool.

― Gilles Deleuze / Felix Guattari   “A Thousand Plateaus”

Whom and what do I touch when I touch my dog? How is becoming with a practice of becoming worldly? When species meet, the question of how to inherit histories is pressing, and how to get on together is at stake.

― Donna J. Haraway “When Species Meet”

“The contemporary relationship between pets and humans exposes the warped nature of how the modern perception of the world and the logic of nature are out of sync. On talk-shows, the value of various types of dogs is decided based on their looks, and thorough-bred dogs are produced through in-breeding, however suffer from serious genetic diseases as a result. People raise strange animals that are not adapted to the environment of cities, and then abandon them in staggering numbers because they don’t know what to do with them, leading to a large number of animals being killed. Furthermore, differing species are bred together (for example in the case of raccoon dogs or the red-eared slider in Japan), leading to new species living in urban environments. This can be said to be a result of humans warping the natural ecology and modes of life of animals to fit their own needs according to modern concepts and perceptions of beauty. People today need to gain a new awareness of nature and reconsider the relationship between pets and humans.” ( This is expanded on in her website)

all images © aki inomata

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