風土

Genius Loci: Landscapes of Cultural Memory

39 images (2004 to present)

 

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats honored in his writings the ancient European awareness of genius loci, the spirit of place. Before the advent of the written word a profoundly deep awareness of land and sense of place was felt in the hearts of people all over the world. These people gathered their information about the world, not from words, but from the wind. These images seek to honor and restore that deep natural awareness that is our universal common heritage.

 

With the advent of the internet we have begun witnessing profound distortions in consensus reality that are profoundly influencing our economic, political and social conditions. More disturbing, our relationship with the Earth is changing dramatically. We are loosing the sensibility to gather information from the wind. The Earth is in crises due to the myopic vision by which we relate with each other and the world.

 

How can we regain this lost sensibility? The awareness of genius loci is still a part of daily life in some places in Japan. Especially for artists. This sensitive awareness of nature and place has been the inspiration for much of Japanese arts and literature since prehistoric times.. The spirit of place continues as a lingering apparition in cultural memory which I seek to express in these images.

 

I am working with local communities in Japan to identify the genius loci in their localities. This ongoing photographic project supports  communities to nourish a sense of wonder about local history, a sense of identification with place in the hearts of the younger generation.

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Edition of 09

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Image sizes:

square  10.24" x 10.24" (260 x260mm), 

paper size 13" x 12.5"  (330 x 320mm)

 

horizontal  12 x 15" (304mm x 381mm) , 

paper size 16" x 20"    ( 406mm x 508)

 

panoroma   6.54 x 18"  (16.6 x 45.72),

paper size  10"  x  25" (254mm x 635mm)

 

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