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Empty Rope is a vernissage and performance evening in which ropes meet butoh. The evening consists of a two part butoh performance by Ken Mai, exhibition opening talk by Renée De Sans, and free mingling while viewing the art.
Participants of the Ken Mai – Metamorphosis workshop have free entry.
In Empty Rope, Renée de Sans explores Shibari by separating its two essential elements: the rope and the human body. Though inherently intertwined in this practice, they are presented apart – uncovering new meanings and tensions through their disconnection.
The exhibition consists of two photographic series. The first captures Shibari patterns shaped into sculptural forms, floating without a body. Empty ropes emphasizing the craft and geometry of the technique, an object of design and intention.
The second series portrays bodies marked by the rope – traces of pressure, memory, and sensation – yet free from the ropes themselves. Shaped by past restraints, these bodies evoke the emotional depth of rope bondage beyond its physical presence.
Through this contrast, Empty Rope questions how much soul remains in a rope no longer tied to skin, and how much emotion a body can carry when liberated from its bonds but still echoing their form. A reflection on the delicate balance between presence and absence, control and release.
In dialogue with the photographic works of Empty Rope, this two-part performance by renowned Butoh artist Ken Mai delves into the unseen forces of control and the paradox of liberation through bondage. Moving through states of stillness and intensity, vulnerability and resistance, Ken Mai explores the residue of restraint — how the body remembers control, even when the restraints are gone.
The first part is an exploration of invisible boundaries: bodies moving within imagined constraints, shaped by memory and internalized limits. The absence of rope becomes its own tension, invoking the question—can we be restrained without visible bonds?
The second part turns toward transformation and release. With fluid motion and ritualized gesture, Ken Mai embraces the rope not as confinement, but as a tool for liberation. What once restrained now becomes a source of joy, support, and expressive freedom.
Restriction Liberation is not just a performance—it is a living echo of the exhibition’s central themes. It embodies the delicate interplay between presence and absence, pain and beauty, surrender and selfhood.
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