At first, I had no idea what the hell this was. It took me a while to understand what it was. At first, I thought it was just some rock-geode structure that was slapped together in some 3-D modeling program. Then, I realized that it was a hermit crab after zooming in on the picture. After that realization, I found the print to be really cute. It was a house made of houses! The more I think about it, hermit crabs can be “iced” out in aquariums. Each crab can have a unique style, different structure such as windmills, normal houses, etc. Different colors could also be used to make the house. But that’s a weird use of the artwork.
To describe this piece, I would say to imagine a big city. There are big buildings, some looking like the Empire State Building, others looking like big fat bricks. Each of the buildings are packed kind of close to one another. Now that has been described, imagine it has all been compacted onto a shell. A shell that can fit on the back of the hermit crab. Now, take that and change the materials of the building into a transparent one. The material itself is most likely made of acrylic or resin that is clear, almost similar to pure frozen ice.
The “craftspersonship” of the housing is actually remarkable. The artist, Aki Inomata, took the time to understand the structure of a hermit crab so that the crab wouldn’t feel uncomfortable or not want to make the print its new home. Various CT scans were taken to ensure that the dimensions of the shell were correct. Another important reason why the artist took scans and did research was because they initially had spherical housings for the crab. However, the crabs didn’t want to take the “shelter” that Aki Inomata created.
The shelters can actually be made into any work of art. As long as the interior of the shelter can be made proper for a crab, anything can be put on the housing. This work of art can relate to other works that have been previously created or it can be whatever the artist wants; City buildings, such as the one shown, castles, animals, planes, etc. are some examples of things that can be modeled on the shell. It would make more sense if the art that was portrayed was that of a structure people can live inside of since it’s a house for hermit crabs.
It relates to refugees or unfortunate people who can find somewhere nice in the world to live. These beautiful structures are built on top of a house for other hermit crabs once its original owner finds a new place to live due to outgrowing its home. Then, that process can repeat over and over again to help other homeless hermit crabs find a place to live and be safe. I came to this conclusion because it was stated by the artist. The former French embassy resided in Japan for a while until 2009, in which it was now owned by Japan. After fifty-plus years, it was given back to France.