In a Line

Carlos Runcie Tanaka (1958-2025), Peruvian artist mixed Japanese and European ancestry, worked in ceramics and sculpture. He favored installation as an art form that allowed him to incorporate a variety of maerials—sand, stone, water, glass, and light—to create settings resonating with the artist’s inner state.
The three clay men with meditative moon-like faces and hands in expressive movements are part of Tanaka’s multimedia creation titled “A Hundred Roses for One Hundred Hopes.” It was inspired by the artist’s experience as a hostage during the terrorist takeover of the Japanese Embassy to Peru in December 1996 - April 1997. “Each clay figure stands on a metal-and-glass case. These cases are like the display cases with archaeological artefacts, which I grew up seeing in Peruvian museums. They contain copies of messages my family and I exchanged during the time I was a hostage,” said Tanaka. “The silent figures, the roses and the messages all claim for life, freedom and hope that communication between human beings will never stop.”