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Exhibition of the week: Mariko Mori: Rebirth, Royal Academy of Arts, London W1
![Ethereal: Japanese artist Mariko Mori](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2012/12/20/00/AN13256771LONDON-ENGLAND---.jpg)
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![Head shot of Kelly Rissman](https://static.independent.co.uk/static-assets/support-us/kelly-rissman.png)
Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
The end of one time, according to many ancient civilizations, presages the beginning of another in the recycle or birth and rebirth.
It's the thought that occurred to the Japanese artist Mariko Mori when asked to provide an installation at the Royal Academy. Rebirth revolves around the death and new life of a star but reaches into meditations on the ancient wisdom of astronomic knowledge and the reach for the universal and eternal.
Fascinated by what she calls the "inner light", Mori mixes simplicity with modern technology and mass-production materials, as in Tom Na H-iu II, an LED-light monolith that's solid and monumental but alive and rhythmic in the light within it.
Also displayed are drawings, photographs and a short film of her latest, ambitious project: to install cosmic-style structures on the inhabited continents of the world.
One hopes that the technical challenges don't drag her back from the ethereal. She is one of the few artists attempting it.
(020 7300 8000; royalacademy.org.uk) to 17 Feb
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