Freedom, 2018

Plywood, metal plate, iron wires installed through laser cutting and welding

Materials included:

Yarns, servos*3, ultrasonic servo, wires

Ideas behind:

I call the project The Womb. I was inspired by the biblical story of Jonah when I was reading a poem describing how the prophet Jonah was trapped and struggled to survive in the belly of a whale, which he calls "the hell of the womb". It aims to express a sense of hope which can break through from the bottom of the ocean.

Poems:

No.1

夜晚

死在枝上

南方的沙

陷入海洋

No.2

如果说每一天都是死一点点,

有一点点的我被埋葬在这里。

想要溯流而上 

会不会凑巧碰到

停留在Hudson Valley的

我的遗骸

No.3

昨夜梦入幽谷

孤独徘徊

烦恼结 在风中抖擞

谁又大胆爱过？

枉然

花香似的自由

No.4

Unending

Will you see my sorrowing heart

That grows from the scars

When you walk down the tundra 

that I grow 

with the wreckage of my heyday.

I fear standing still

facing the naked earth of our battles.

You used to hold me 

with your moist and luminous eyes,

eyes that reflect the silhouette of sparrows;

the embroidered fan with summer scent;

and 

the citrus sunset we once had in those afternoons.

Now the summer ends;

the memories sharpened,

If not of arrows,

then of love.

You are not ready to,

and I cannot anymore.

Stay

or go and live your life.

Just go somewhere far 

Out 

I sit in your air.

Translation Practices:

The Chinkapin Oak Tree 

from My Prose Poems by Akutagawa Ryunosuke

Translated by Yimeng Sun

The shape of chinkapin oak trees is exquisite. The tree trunks and branches show great power in every contour of their shapes. The leaves, which are stretching from the branches like armors, are gleaming with metallic gloss. The leaves can neither be frosted nor dewed. If they happen to be fanned by the north wind, the brown underside of the leaves can be seen all at once. They sound almost like a man’s laughter.

While the look of chinkapin oak is not barbarous. Both colors of the leaves and the branches have a sense of calmness about them. The trees are modest, like those of well-educated and cultured Shijin officials (Shitaifu [a high-ranking official from Kakyo, ancient Chinese higher civil service examinations]). The chinkapin oak is not aware of such modesty.

In the meantime, the chinkapin oak is not indecisive at all. Camphor trees rustle when frolicking with the specks of spring sunlight. It is a kind of easiness that chinkapin oaks wouldn't know. Chinkapin oaks are melancholy. In return, they seem more trustworthy. Their modesty makes us feel pretty approachable. At the same time, the shades of their melancholy warn us against behaving recklessly. Matsuo Basho had said more than two hundred years ago, “While I was drifting on the road, I entered this mountain hermitage in search of a temporary haven. I found a chinkapin oak tree in a grove of summer trees, and I was able to rest my mind here.” Basho knew the characteristics of chikapins.

The shape of chinkapin oaks is beautiful. Especially when on a bright day with transparent sunlight shedding down, the tree leaves glitter. The sight of them silently towering there with dark-colored branches stretching in the air is solemn. The great Japanese sages from ancient times must have once stood with solemnity just like these old chinkapin oak trees. The thick trunks and branches of these trees are still bearing the scars of the wind and rain.

I would like to add one last thing, our ancestors worshipped the chinkapin oak like a deity, just as how they worshipped the cedar trees.