Look Again

Look Again is an installation composed of naturally fallen Bodhi leaves collected from three Bodhi trees in Okinawa.

 

These Bodhi trees were grown from saplings brought from Sri Lanka after the Second World War as symbols of mourning for those who died in the Battle of Okinawa and of hope for postwar recovery. Today, they continue to be carefully cared for by many people.

 

What moved me was not only their history, but the way a single wish has continued to be carried from one person to another across generations. I wanted to become part of that continuing passage of time, and this work grew from that intention.

 

To me, the fallen leaves accumulating beneath the trees represent the time that has been passed down and the wishes that people have entrusted to one another.

 

Marked by insects, weather, and time, the fallen leaves eventually return to the earth and become part of the soil that nurtures new life. Their appearance overlaps with the lives of those who have carried grief, pain, and hope into the present.

 

Using a glass-firing technique that I developed through more than twenty years of research and patented in Japan, I permanently fuse these fallen leaves into glass at the moment decomposition begins, preserving their fragile transitional state.

 

As light passes through the glass, the leaves project their scarred and transformed forms onto the surface behind them. These shadows lengthen and contract, become stronger and fainter, appearing and disappearing as the light changes.

 

Yet one thing does not change: these fallen leaves came from Bodhi trees that have continued to grow through the wishes and care of generations of people.

 

Look Again is a work that brings together the unchanging presence of the fallen leaves and the ever-changing shadows created by light, inviting viewers to look again at the wishes and the passage of time that have been carried from one generation to the next.