Artist Hiromi Tango thinks we're moving too fast and she wants to help slow us down

Hiromi Tango, a Japanese-Australian artist, is gently piecing together a flower using recycled fabrics, her fingers working deftly with a soft smile on her face. Since childhood, she has found solace in creating things.

Tango says that for at least 40 years, art, craft, and painting have been her “therapy for my own anxiety.” In a soft voice, she shares that growing up in rural Japan, there was much secrecy and stigma surrounding mental health issues, including within her own family. Talking about these things was taboo, and pursuing art was not encouraged.

“My father really tried to stop me from doing art,” she says. Despite this, the young Tango read every book she could find on mental health, art, and science. For over two decades, she has consistently integrated these themes into her unique and vibrant works, including textiles, installations, performances, sculptures, and photography.

Tango's distinctive and vibrant pieces are created through a time-consuming and focused process of material wrapping. Tango dislikes categorizing her practice, but her intention is always clear: to create healing dialogues through artmaking. She collaborates with scientists, health professionals, and research institutions to explore the healing possibilities of art and how artistic creation can promote mental well-being.

Her works and installations have been exhibited in major art galleries, international exhibitions, inclusive art spaces, and health centers. Last year, the interactive exhibition “Children’s Sensory Space” at the Castlemaine Art Museum responded to the crisis of children’s well-being and resilience outlined in the National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Her ongoing art series “Healing Chromosomes” explores the dependence on electronic devices and their impact on the mind and relationships.

Another series, “Hiromi Hotel,” is set up in different spaces, inviting the public into a private, vibrant, and immersive world, helping them slow down and reconnect through collective art creation. This year, Museums of History NSW announced that they will exhibit a large digital artwork by Tango, which will be projected onto the exterior of the Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, a UNESCO World Heritage site. A companion “Garden of Hope” will bring people together through workshops to create flowers reflecting the universal theme of hope.

Tango will also collaborate with communities in Victoria this year to create a “Healing Garden” and will create a large-scale piece at the National Gallery Singapore to help engage children with special needs. At the core of Tango’s art is the slow and focused wrapping of everyday objects with brightly colored materials. For her, the repetitive process brings focus and calm, which is important for processing traumatic memories and feelings.

“The simple act of wrapping [fabric] activates the frontal lobe of the brain… repetition has a [calming] effect,” she says. Tango’s early practice was influenced by her grandmothers who made kimonos. Creating with soothing materials like soft fabrics was a practice Tango began as a child, using scraps from her two kimono-making grandmothers. “We hardly bought anything new, [I] always used materials from the house, making little puppets or things. I’m very grateful that I was always surrounded by this [creativity],” she says.

Many of her creations were done in secret from her father, although sometimes she could share the process with her mother. Her mother was quiet, but the two bonded through making. “My mother, she never talked, she was really not allowed to speak in front of my father and men… so we communicated non-verbally.” “I [had] artworks hidden in my bedroom blankets, with a little torch, I [would finish] the work.”

Once her father fell asleep, her mother would wake her up, and they would turn on the light and create art together, sometimes all night. “She helped me… she kept [it] a secret from my father… it was very special,” Tango says. Now, as an adult, she tries to maintain her “childlike curiosity and wonder.” Tango immigrated to Australia from Shikoku Island, Japan in 1998 and currently resides in the Bongaloon area of Tweed Heads.

Like her artworks, which extend in various spontaneous directions, Tango does not want to be limited to one thing as an artist. After being bedridden with long COVID in recent years, she has been focusing on her physical health, doing yoga and Pilates, as well as gardening and other therapeutic activities. Tango's curiosity, artmaking, and interest in physical health and nature all converge in a recent large-scale commissioned artwork, “Garden | Heal Together,” located at the new Tweed Valley Hospital.

Hanging from the hospital foyer ceiling is a large-scale sculpture woven with soothing hues. It is inspired by the shape of the local lilly pilly berries, an idea suggested by Uncle Frank Krasna, a Bongaloon elder whom Tango met before creating the artwork. “Garden | Heal Together” explores the healing and medicinal properties of plants in the Tweed Valley region, as well as the effect of color on mood. Clusters of blue and green woven materials hang from the ceiling, bringing the colors of the local lush hinterland and coast indoors, aiming to evoke a sense of calm in the hospital.

“We wanted to dream the hospital as not a scary place, but a healing space, [for] the hospital patients and their families, staff, and health professionals [to receive] warm energy, healing energy.” This is one of Tango’s largest projects. Over three years, more than 500 community members were involved in its creation, including making fabric-woven “seedlings” and “berries” together in workshops.

“It’s really not a project. It’s a real connection, a gift from everyone,” Tango says. The local Bongaloon Aboriginal and South Sea Islander communities played an important role in the project. For Tango, the work has another layer of meaning, as it was also inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young atomic bomb victim from Japan who became known for making small paper cranes during her treatment. When Sadako died in 1955, aged just 12, others were inspired by her and continued making paper cranes.

Tango explains the tradition that later became a Japanese prayer: “When you make 1,000 paper cranes for someone, you receive healing.” She wanted to reference this in the “Healing Garden,” which features not paper cranes, but thousands of brightly colored seedlings and berries. Tango holds up a section of the sculpture design. Tango’s early interest in science has not disappeared. For years, she has been collaborating with a neuroscientist to explore the role of color in our lives and its impact on our brains.

She also wants to better understand what happens to our eyes as we age. Her father passed away in 2024, suffering from dementia. She says she learned from him about how the retina functions in older people. “When you have old eyes, your retina [degrades], but… bright colors help stimulate the brain and neural pathways.” “So that’s [why] I started using fluorescent colors and rainbow colors.”

Her decade-long collaboration with Dr. Emma Burrows, a researcher at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, led to the creation of installations like “The Wheel” (2021)—a giant rainbow-colored exercise apparatus used to study how color, play spaces, and movement affect mood. The rainbow-colored “Wheel” premiered at Science Gallery Melbourne in 2021. “Spirit: The Colour of Happiness” (2023), a tech-infused interactive color artwork exhibited at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore, encourages people to confront biases and stereotypes about mental health.

Tango, who is neurodiverse, says the rainbow also symbolizes uniqueness and diversity. “Rainbow Dream: Moon Rainbow,” a collaboration between Tango and Dr. Emma Burrows, was exhibited at the DARK MOFO festival in 2022. Under Tango's guidance, a temporary and joyful rainbow formed at the Museum of Brisbane and was on display until the end of February. Named “Petal Hanabira (Gentle Petal),” it is a vibrant making space, inviting people to create flowers with their own hands. As people join, a colorful flower bed extends up the walls.

It was created by Tango in collaboration with Turrbal elders from Mianjin (Brisbane), science organizations, and local artists and communities. The room is muted in tone, with colors inspired by the hues of the local hibiscus and Brisbane wattle. Here, the science of color, the focused therapeutic effect achieved through making, and a sense of belonging all come together. “I hope through flowers, through plants, we can feel comforted,” Tango says. “We want to create a healing space, a comfortable space… to learn from each other and connect.”

In the “Gentle Petal” room at the Museum of Brisbane, “there are lots of conversations, lots of tears,” Tango says. When many people are so busy, Tango says that the simple act of sitting around a table with others to make small crafted flowers is a powerful one. “In today’s fast-paced society, it’s so important to slow down… we process information much faster than our brains can handle. It’s dangerous.”

This calming and colorful room is an antidote to that. “This space makes everyone feel deeply connected.” “I hope [it] offers some comfort.” **“Petal Hanabira (Gentle Petal)” is on display at the Museum of Brisbane until March 2, 2025.** **“Hope at Hyde Park Barracks” is on display in Sydney from April 11 to June 21, 2025.** **“Healing Garden” is on display at the Hawthorn Arts Centre’s Town Hall Gallery from February 5 to April 26, 2025.**