Kazuki Taguchi’s installations mediate the relationships between light, space, the body, and the environment, constructing spatial experiences that engage the viewer’s perception and sense of existence. Utilizing natural materials native to the land—such as wild grasses, plants, soil, water, and fibers—his work permeates the exhibition space with the topographical and ecological memories inherent within them. The soft light filtering through his handmade paper introduces delicate gradations and fluctuations to the space, enveloping the viewer’s body in a mesh of light and shadow. As the viewer moves through this space, they undergo a perceptual experience in which the boundaries of awareness between the self and the environment are gradually dissolved.

While this practice draws upon the conceptual evolution of Land Art from the 1960s and 70s, it inherits those ideas in a more fluid and delicate form. Artists like Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt perceived artworks not as autonomous objects, but as entities established within relationships of terrain, climate, and time, treating the site itself as the source of meaning. Taguchi’s work adopts this concept of site-specific art but establishes a dialogical relationship with spatial characteristics, materials, humidity, and lighting conditions, even within architectural interiors or limited exhibition spaces. In particular, the handmade paper he employs varies significantly in texture and translucency depending on the plant species and water properties used. Rather than existing as a pre-fixed form, the process of creation and installation itself functions as a dialogue with the location. The artwork is composed differently each time in response to the unique spatial structure and climatic conditions, renewing its perceptual effects with every iteration. Therefore, for Taguchi, the “site” is not merely a background for placing a work, but an active field that co-generates meaning alongside the materials and the body. The viewer’s perception, too, emerges within such a space.

In his work, light serves not merely to illuminate objects but as a constituent element of the perceptual experience within the exhibition space. In this respect, Taguchi’s practice can be positioned as an attempt to reinterpret and update the ideals of the Light and Space movement of the 1960s in a contemporary form. Just as Robert Irwin and James Turrell sought to transform the viewer’s perceptual experience through light and space, Taguchi seeks to generate new relationships between space and the body through light and materials. However, his approach differs in that it does not rely on artificial materials or industrial methods, but employs organic materials rooted in the local soil. The light in Taguchi’s art does not illuminate a pre-existing space; rather, it intervenes in the very process of the viewer’s artistic experience. This unique method of spatial generation is also closely related to traditional Japanese spatial concepts. As seen in Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows (In’ei Raisan), the philosophy that beauty resides in the interplay of light and dark occupies an important position in Taguchi’s work. Instead of the visual clarity provided by strong illumination, the faint light transmitted through paper connects the space and the viewer in a melting embrace. Here, the viewer’s body is not a viewpoint external to the space, but is already enveloped as part of the work.

Kazuki Taguchi’s installations unfold not merely within the realm of visual art, but as dynamic structures traversing materials, light, space, perception, and the body. The work does not isolate the viewer as an individual but repositions them within a relationship with the surrounding environment, functioning as a catalyst where the energy of the place acts upon perception. While grounded in the genealogy of Land Art and Light Art, Taguchi’s work represents a significant practice in contemporary perceptual art, reconnecting these lineages to an organic and ecological mode of perception.