Article on Nest = 0 exhibition

There are no straight lines or right angles in Tono Mirai's nest, not that you notice anyway. You pass through an oval entrance into a spiralling passageway with walls built from thatchers' straw and Kent mud. Light and sound filter through the woven thatch reminding you just how close the installation is to the street. But as you pass along the curve you come to the low-walled inner space which is effectively bed, bedroom and nest all rolled into one, and you're utterly cut off from the outside world. The curves and the natural materials which surround you soothe and relax. Although the architecture hints at primitive adobe huts of Africa, the walls are supported by a curved steel-rod framework. The bending and welding of steel, the skilled labour with straw and mud, could all be witnessed through the open shop front window of the gallery during the four weeks that Mirai and his team of helpers from Tokyo were hard at work on the construction. But having made so visible both the labour of the building process, and the beauty of the finished product, it seems perverse that the present intention is for the work to be taken down after the four short weeks of the exhibition. Especially since - like Richard Wilson's 20:50 at Saatchi's - the installation really needs to be occupied by just one person at a time and for long enough to adjust to its unique parameters.