[3]: 140 After graduating from high school in Tokyo in 1978, Nagasawa returned to the Netherlands, where she spent part of her childhood, and completed her undergraduate degree at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht.
According to the art historian Midori Yoshimoto, “When [Nagasawa] visited Documenta VII (1982) in Kassel, Germany, on her graduation from Maastricht in 1982, she encountered Joseph Beuys’s tree-planting campaign, 7000 Oaks (1982–1987).
She grew aware of ‘how issues such as “self”, “other”, “gender”, “race”, and “alienation” are all intertwined on the conscious and subconscious spheres of human experiences’ and that ‘the “self” was, in part, self-constructed through interactions with others’.”[4]: 68 In 1984, one year before graduating from the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, Nagasawa was impressed by the sight of the Great Wall of China vanishing into the desert during a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Berlin to Beijing.
[3]: 142 Midori Yoshimoto explains: “The cross-continental adventure made her realise how many civilisations had risen and fallen due to conquest or conflicts over territory and resources throughout history.
Upon returning to her native country after a six-year absence, Nagasawa decided to visit the renowned ceramicist Ryoji Koie, whose series of earth sculptures— which she had seen at an exhibition in Switzerland—left a strong impression on her.
Needless to say, my proposal of excavating and burning the earth to revitalize the land was intensely debated among the Jewish and German communities.”[1]: 57 “After several months of listening to the communities and better explaining her intentions, she eventually received permission.
[4]: 69 These experiences of producing earthworks led to Nagasawa's later public art practice during her time in California, in which she developed her work in interaction with the local community.
In contrast to the huge wooden and iron works transported from Japan by Shigeo Toya and Saburo Muraoka, who participated in the same exhibition, Nagasawa preferred to create her work locally during her four-week stay in Prague, building a 28 meter long, 5 meter high bridge in the Royal Gardens of Prague Castle using thousands of sandbags.
I felt honored that President Havel was the first person at the opening to recognize the significance of the work and to manually turn the hourglass – a resonance of consolidation between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.”[1]: 57–58 The exhibition's next venue was the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.
[5]: 59 Nagasawa's dome Pfalzkapelle was constructed by layers of sandbags and barbed wire mesh, with the ceiling open to the sky symbolizing a wish for peace.
[5]: 59 As the hourglass in the dome ticked, the different colored sands from East and West Berlin mingled and came together, as if to visualize reunited Germany, which until just five years before the exhibition had remained divided, and the collapsing boundaries between communism and capitalism itself.
[5]: 59–60 Nagasawa participated in Peace Sculpture 1995 in Denmark, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and presented her project Bunker Motel: Emergency Womb (1995) in Thyborøn.
According to Nagasawa: “The Danish coast is littered with 7000 military bunkers built during World War II under Hitler’s Atlantic Wall Fortification Project.
By asking local communities for transporting the terracotta eggs made by Hindu potters, who are a minority in the Islamic country of Bangladesh, Nagasawa's project seemed to challenge the inter-cultural strife that has come to light since 9/11, by saying that art is not bound by differences of nation or creed.
[10] “Initially, the exhibition organizer, the Sultan’s daughter, Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, was concerned that her project would cause a public outcry of indecency because of the ‘contentious’ material (nylon stockings) and that it was based on ‘American feminism’, and thus was patronizing.
Bravely, Nagasawa wrote a letter directly to the Sultan's daughter, primarily to stress that she is a ‘Japanese’ living in the United States and as such was a member of a ‘minority’.
As this example demonstrates, Nagasawa's position as an outsider enables her to discover the hidden voices of those marginalized by the societies she visits and renders them into poetic form.
This is an ability she has nurtured through her transnational experiences.”[4]: 77 In Nagasawa’s recent project entitled Time Sculpture – Koro-pok-kuru (2012), “she created a circular earthwork with two entry points on its eastern and western sides and a hollow space surrounding a boulder in the centre.
In addition, she constructed 500 ‘eggs’ (out of local soil, containing native flower seeds) with workshop participants and, with their help, installed them inside the sculpture.
“Koro-pok-kuru are a race of ‘small people’, literally meaning, ‘people under the leaves of the butterbur plant’ in the language of the Ainu, the indigenous population of Hokkaido.”[4]: 80 Midori Yoshimoto interprets: “This new work exemplifies the philosophy and process behind most of Nagasawa’s art, which involves in-depth research into the cultural history, environment and memory of the specific locations, as well as community participation.