Tomoko Konoike has continued to explore ways of opening art beyond a solely human activity toward non-human beings, including animals and the natural world. This work was exhibited in the exhibition Fundamental Violence organized by the Sezon Museum of Modern Art in 2015, and belongs to a period when Konoike began using leather as a primary material in earnest, moving away from paper and canvas.
Leather produces qualities of color different from those of paper or canvas. Rather than remaining on the surface, dyes and pigments penetrate into the material itself, creating distinctive hues and textures. In this work, the body of the giant land slug is composed of hundreds of narrow strips of leather, each individually dyed to create rich gradations of color. Equally important is leather’s capacity to be sewn together, allowing the support structure itself to be formed from the material. Made from scraps and split leather left over from other works, the sewn leather covers a three-part stainless-steel wire mesh framework, forming the skin of a single enormous land slug.
Konoike first became fascinated by land slugs while walking in the forests of Kirishima in Kyushu. The moon depicted in this work is also a significant motif that recurs throughout her practice. It resonates with the moon carried aboard the boat in Lodge the Art Museum(2012) and with the imagery of the land slug and moon in Fusuma-e Installation (2020), suggesting a continuity that extends across multiple works. Beyond the shared theme of carrying the moon, these works also reveal structural affinities, such as beams, lintels, and underlying frameworks that support the forms themselves.
Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Konoike described a change in her bodily perception as a “slow halt.” The giant land slug in this work may be understood as a being that moves slowly while dragging along everything it has seen and experienced, reflecting a transformed sense of embodiment and a changed perception of the world.