First exhibited in 2018 in Fukui, Japan at the 30th Imdate Paper Contemporary Art Exhibition, Marks of Surface is a 5-metre tall installation made of two different weights of Washi paper, and Miyamori’s tree rubbings that hangs from two bamboo rings. The inner combines washi with multiple layers of gampi, crafted to be extremely fine. The translucency of the washi allows for the interactions between the viewer and the installation to envelop and absorb them into a new world, and reacts with the heat generated by the bodies inside. Each tree rubbing was taken from one of the five surrounding Shinto shrines in Fukui, connecting them and reaching upward and beyond the earth, radiating physically through the gampi’s interaction with the viewer.

As the Washi floats around within the installation and connects with the viewer, the silhouette can be seen from the outside, bringing them bare to their existence from the outside. Miyamori wanted to capture a raw essence to humans, using the gampi to help visitors feel and observe their own energy, and to connect with the invisible aspects of their existence.

Later in the year, Marks of Surface travelled from Fukui to Yokohama, Japan, where it was adjusted for Birth-Growth-Recursion at Galerie Paris. At the exhibition in Fukui, Marks of Surface was a connection to earth through the energy in the Washi, using its impressive height, to represent the grandiosity of nature. In Yokohama, Marks of Surface did not have its top tower portion, as the focus was not its height, but the interaction within the installation with its performers.

Without the tower, this version also does not have the inner dome, allowing for the performers and audience to enter the installation and emerge anew. In conjunction with a musical and dance performance, Miyamori explores the parallels within an ephemeral birth and the eternal cycle as a whole.