— Unkaï —
the Cloud Hanging to the Mountain

In 2022, Céline Wright was invited for a six-month artistic residency at Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, a pivotal experience that marked a profound turning point in her practice. Immersed in Japan, she deepened her relationship with washi paper — the material that has inspired her work from the very beginning — while pushing its traditional boundaries toward new, innovative, and entirely natural forms of expression.

Through encounters with master craftsmen and journeys across regions such as Echizen and Shikoku, Céline returned to the very origins of papermaking. There, she produced her own washi sheets and discovered papers of extraordinary quality, including rare kozo fibers that would later give life to one of her most ambitious works. These explorations led her to conceive large-scale pieces, experimental forms of Land Art, and new material vocabularies — establishing a clear before and after Villa Kujoyama.

Among the works born from this residency are two Cocoon Shelters, created for the Sleepless Nights event at the Kyocera Museum, and Unkaï — the Cloud Hanging to the Mountain, an experimental Land Art installation realized in 2022.

Suspended in the bamboo-filled patio of Villa Kujoyama, Unkaï is a light sculpture made of bamboo and washi paper, echoing the cloud-like scarves Céline observed drifting around the mountain peaks during her travels. Nestled between concrete walls and rising bamboos, the piece formed a quiet dialogue between architecture and nature, permanence and fragility.

Exposed to time and weather, Unkaï endured the passing seasons — bending in rain, resisting snow, cracking, being repaired — evolving as a living work under the watchful presence of the villa’s residents. More than an installation, it became an ongoing experiment, a poetic meditation on resilience, transformation, and the intimate bond between craft, landscape, and light.