Invisible Voice　　　　　　　　　　　　

Eda researched the relationship between the Japanese traditional dry garden ”Kare-Sansui” and the Southwestern Native American "Kiva," looking at how each builds space as a means to confront self. A Kiva is both a dwelling and a space for spiritual ceremonies, while a Japanese dry garden is a space in which people quietly confronted themselves. She compared these two spaces as locations of interaction with what has transcended people’s selves.

Based on the experiences that she obtained in the field research of Native American ruins in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, Eda produced clothes as a medium to exist between nature and the human body.

 

 

Kare-Sansui　枯山水

“枯（kare）”means “Dry”,　“山水（Sansui）”means “Landscape”.

“Kare－Sansui” was created first in the 15th century by laying white sand in the garden on the south side of a building with the purpose of holding a ceremony.

This was developed from a special custom at that time to appreciate "Sansui-ga－(山水画)", which is a drawing of landscape on a long slip of paper put on an important part of a building. “Kare-Sansui” was intended to reproduce a landscape depicted in Sansui-ga（山水画） by expressing an island with a rock and an ocean with white sand in three dimensions and in reduced size. People at that time believed a landscape (scenery) to be “Goshintai（御神体）” –a housed object of worship, and looking at a ”Sansui-ga－landscape painting（山水画）” was equal to worshipping “Goshintai(御神体)”.  Therefore, while viewing a garden in this dry garden style, people worshipped the hills as a spirit or deity, and worshipped the scenery created by islands and water, and quietly confronted themselves.  No particular ceremony took place, but this was the kind of space where one could feel, in a figurative way, the sense of “Ma” or the sense of space peculiar to the Japanese people.

 

                            

Kiva

Kiva is a Hopi word for a ceremonial room or underground chambers that may be comparable to later churches.  Based on modern Puebloan culture, the Ancestral Pueblo Peoples may have used kivas for healing rites or to pray for rain, luck in hunting, or good crops.

 

 

Through field study and research

I visited many Native American ruins in Arizona, Ne­­w Mexico, and Colorado to research Kivas, the space used for rituals. 　

 

1. Navajo National Monument  :  Betatakin

2. Canyon de Shelly National Monument  :

White House Ruin

3.  Hopi Mesa

4. Mesa Verde National  Park

5. Chaco Culture National Historical Park

6.  Zuni Pueblo

7. Bandelier National Monument

8. Taos Pueblo

 

During my research I had a feeling that I was grasping the whole aspect of nature and concurrently a feeling close to a fear that we human beings were stared at by the scenery or nature. I have never had such feelings while in my native country, Japan.

Then, when I got into a kiva, the gaze by the scenery “a feeling of being stared at” was blocked but

I had a sense of safety because my body and nature or scenery became one body. These experiences reversed my view point about nature or scenery from looking at to being looked at, and at the same time I had a special feeling of belongingness that my body and nature exist without boundaries.

 

A key of the comparative study of Kivas and Kare-Sansui seemed to lie in how this nature is perceived and the relationship with human embodiment.

Why is it possible to stand face to face with and reflect on oneself by seeing the condensed nature expressed as Kare -Sansui?　It is because, at those times, the worship of nature or scenery was equal to that of “Goshintai” –a housed object of worship-. This means that nature itself was “Goshintai”, the existence which transcended itself, and the expression of how it is viewed is manifested as a style of “garden” like Kare-Sansui.

It is an act of acquiring the way of the view as well as the way of one’s own existence, by reconstructing nature in front of the eyes.  The sensation that I was stared at by the nature and that  I felt the whole aspect of nature from inside myself, which I had during my research, is the connection between nature and the human body, which is connected to the feelings one gets by confronting oneself quietly in front of Kare-Sansui.

Through the experience gained from these field study and research, my creation plan went on as a bridge between human body and nature, or scenery.

As a “between bridge” of nature and human embodiment, the first thing that came to my mind was paper, which is the most accessible material for me.  Nature was thus condensed to a thin piece of paper.  In Japan, paper is used to separate rooms or even to disconnect from the outside world.  This material exists as barrier or a division between the inside and outside of the living space for Japanese.  Therefore, I created paper in a primitive method (with using cactus), and using that paper as a material, configured a clothes as a symbol bridging body and external space, constructing a newly created space.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

#1

One day, when I was drawing and made a mistake, I scrunched the paper and tossed it on my desk. I tossed a few more scrunched papers and left them there. At one moment, I looked at the scrunched papers and they looked like a sculpture. Given a pressure by hand, the scrunched papers had unique shapes with unintentionally created spaces. This got me interested, and I repeated doing the same things over and over again. Of course, each of the scrunched paper has a unique shape. Even a same hand scrunches a paper in a same way, the scrunched paper has a new shape, completely different from the last one. I found a beauty in the space created by folded papers. I wanted to gather these small sculptures and create one big mass. I feel the presence and absence of thing in the mass.

 

 

#2

Sometimes, I cannot tell if the time is moving forward. After reminiscing about the past and coming to realize the good deal of time had passed, I feel very anxious.

As I draw each line with a pen, it naturally piles on top of another, and I do not become anxious no matter how much time passes. These hours to create works make me feel very safe. And moreover, I am very intrigued how much I can draw with the ink inside one pen. The conversion, how much area the little amount of ink inside a thin pen will occupy, interests me.

 

  

My subject of the research is concerned with “Ma ( 間 )”, which represents Japanese specific sensation of space and time. The reason why I chose this subject is that I supposed there was a sensation which leads to “Ma” in the space of my works. And I exemplified   Land Art and Japanese  dry garden style which we called “Kare-sansui（枯山水）”, and weighed them.

Because I supposed I could consider this subject in greater depth by comparing American feeling for spaces with Japanese one.
“ Kare-sansui ” means Japanese specific garden where water is expressed by sands without water itself and islands are expressed by stones.

And I start to think I want to see and experience Land Art. Moreover, after living and creating my works in America, I wanted to know how my own sensation to spaces and time changes. And, after I knew there were the persons who were descended from the Native American  people among the creators of Land Art and the creators who drew on the type of creation from the tradition which got through some tribes, I wanted to know about the Native American people too.

 So I undertook a field survey dealing with “Human fundamental desire and expression rooted in the natural and cultural environment.” I researched on the Land Art and on Native American people’s land.Although these researches and study of mine are not sufficient yet and ongoing.

 I will try to find the source of inspiration for the spatial designs.