Wednesday, June 29, 2022
  • Login
198 Japan News
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • BUSINESS NEWS
  • VIDEO NEWS
  • FEATURED NEWS
    • JAPAN US TRADE NEWS
    • JAPAN EU NEWS
    • JAPAN UK NEWS
    • JAPAN INDIA NEWS
    • JAPAN RUSSIA NEWS
    • JAPAN GULF NATIONS NEWS
    • JAPAN AFRICA NEWS
    • JAPAN EGYPT NEWS
    • JAPAN NIGERIA NEWS
    • JAPAN MEXICO NEWS
    • JAPAN BRAZIL NEWS
    • JAPAN THAILAND NEWS
    • JAPAN INDONESIA NEWS
  • CRYPTO
  • POLITICAL
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • JAPAN AGRICULTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN MANUFACTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN AGRICULTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN IMMIGRATION NEWS
    • JAPAN UNIVERSITY NEWS
    • JAPAN EDUCATION NEWS
    • JAPAN VENTURE CAPITAL NEWS
    • JAPAN JOINT VENTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN BUSINESS HELP
    • JAPAN PARTNESHIPS
  • ASK IKE LEMUWA
  • CONTACT
198 Japan News
  • HOME
  • BUSINESS NEWS
  • VIDEO NEWS
  • FEATURED NEWS
    • JAPAN US TRADE NEWS
    • JAPAN EU NEWS
    • JAPAN UK NEWS
    • JAPAN INDIA NEWS
    • JAPAN RUSSIA NEWS
    • JAPAN GULF NATIONS NEWS
    • JAPAN AFRICA NEWS
    • JAPAN EGYPT NEWS
    • JAPAN NIGERIA NEWS
    • JAPAN MEXICO NEWS
    • JAPAN BRAZIL NEWS
    • JAPAN THAILAND NEWS
    • JAPAN INDONESIA NEWS
  • CRYPTO
  • POLITICAL
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • JAPAN AGRICULTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN MANUFACTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN AGRICULTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN IMMIGRATION NEWS
    • JAPAN UNIVERSITY NEWS
    • JAPAN EDUCATION NEWS
    • JAPAN VENTURE CAPITAL NEWS
    • JAPAN JOINT VENTURE NEWS
    • JAPAN BUSINESS HELP
    • JAPAN PARTNESHIPS
  • ASK IKE LEMUWA
  • CONTACT
No Result
View All Result
198 Japan News
No Result
View All Result
Home JAPAN EGYPT NEWS

A Complex for the End of Time

by 198 Japan News
December 7, 2021
in JAPAN EGYPT NEWS
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.

Turning Point: For some stranded away from home, the seemingly endless months of the pandemic became a kind of sabbatical.

In medieval times, people typically lived out their entire lives in the same community. It was only with the advent of modernity and the invention of trains, automobiles and airplanes that people started to broadly roam the surface of the earth. Even an artist like me can circle the earth two-and-a-half times, as I did in 2019. I’m usually based in New York, and my ever-expanding workload comprised solo exhibitions, lectures, theater productions and architectural projects. Then came Covid-19. I happened to be in Japan when the pandemic began. Because of the global shutdown, I have rediscovered the simple pleasure of living in the same community — in this case the Shirokane district of Tokyo — for more than a year and a half.

In 1665 London, the plague was rampant. Isaac Newton retreated to Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, his native village in eastern England, for a year and a half to avoid the spread of infection. There he threw himself into his research. This was when he came up with the theory of gravity, after witnessing an apple fall. This was when, after setting up a prism on the second floor of his house, he discovered that daylight refracts into a spectrum of seven colors. This was when he developed his theory on infinitesimal calculus. This work laid the foundations of modern physics and mathematics. Some good can come out of a pandemic. My work as a photographer owes a debt of gratitude to Newton’s prism experiments then.

I chose to follow Newton’s example, treating these 18 months in Japan as a sabbatical and focusing intently on my work. In my case, that meant pushing my final work — the one that will be my legacy — closer to completion. I have called this project the Enoura Observatory, a multidisciplinary cultural complex that includes a gallery, two stages for the performing arts, a teahouse, shrine and numerous pavilions. It is set on 10 acres of hillside overlooking Sagami Bay in the Kataura district of Odawara, and the architecture hews to a style that the ancients once built for the observation of the heavens. Seven thousand years ago, humans began erecting structures to verify that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and that time progresses as the seasons change. I imagine this gave them a sense of place and purpose in the universe. These archaeoastronomical structures are now reduced to ruins in places like Egypt, Peru and Ireland.

Civilizations rise and fall. In a bid to prepare for the possible collapse of our modern civilization, I am making a garden that will devolve beautifully into ruins of stone. Perhaps someday a future society, with little knowledge of our time, will discover this site and will ponder its meaning.

Here at Enoura, where I toil every day, I have appointed myself master of a crew of stonemasons. For guidance I refer to “Sakuteiki,” or “Notes on Garden Design,” written by Tachibana Toshitsuna in the 11th century. In his book, Tachibana states that the most important thing is “to listen to the voices of the stones.” Each stone has its own unique character. By listening to the stone and recognizing this character, I can identify the purpose of each one and see how they need to come together to work in harmony.

While I have been unable to leave Japan, I have been working remotely on my next major project, in Washington, D.C. I have taken on the challenge of revitalizing the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn Museum. Gordon Bunshaft, the architect of the Hirshhorn and designer of the original garden, was deeply influenced by the stone gardens of medieval Japan. Inspired by Bunshaft’s dream of a modernist stone garden, I decided that a Japanese dry stone wall could act as a symbolic link between the ancient and the modern, providing the perfect background for the museum’s modernist sculptures.

Just before the outbreak of Covid-19, I was visiting quarries on the East Coast of the United States, listening to the voices of their stones. Now as I work to build the Enoura Observatory, while listening to the voices of the stones, I think of the Hirshhorn sculpture garden. The stones that link these two sites, halfway around the world, existed long before the advent of humanity, and their voices will continue to endure long after the fall of our civilization.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is an artist, architect and writer.



Source link

You might also like

U.S., EU, Japan eye curbing methane emissions in oil, gas sector

As food shortages loom, a race to free Ukraine’s stranded grain

War-driven race for food and gas converges on Arab linchpin Egypt

Tags: Complextime
Share30Tweet19

Recommended For You

U.S., EU, Japan eye curbing methane emissions in oil, gas sector

by 198 Japan News
June 17, 2022
0

The United States, the European Union and countries such as Japan on Friday agreed to enhance efforts to achieve a goal of reducing global methane emissions by at...

Read more

As food shortages loom, a race to free Ukraine’s stranded grain

by 198 Japan News
June 2, 2022
0

KLAIPEDA, Lithuania – The Baltic Sea port has silos to store plenty of grain, railway lines to transport it there from Ukraine, where it has been trapped by...

Read more

War-driven race for food and gas converges on Arab linchpin Egypt

by 198 Japan News
May 31, 2022
0

Offshore from Ras al-Bar, where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean, cargo ships shimmer through the midday haze as they head west along the coast toward the blue...

Read more

U.S. seeks to wean India from Russian weapons with arms-aid package

by 198 Japan News
May 18, 2022
0

The U.S. is preparing a military aid package for India to deepen security ties and reduce the country’s dependence on Russian weapons, people familiar with the matter have...

Read more

China’s state-owned shipping giant expanding global influence

by 198 Japan News
May 14, 2022
0

Beijing , May 14 (ANI): China's state-owned COSCO Shipping Corporation Ltd, the fourth-biggest player in the shipping industry, according to London-based data analytics company GlobalData, is increasingly expanding...

Read more
Next Post

Uber: A record of rough rides: what Uber, Lyft, and Grab IPOs say about Ola’s listing hopes

Japan enlists U.S.-based chefs in videos aiming to boost farm exports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

Gravitas: China retaliates after Biden's Taiwan comment

37

The Global South has the power to force radical climate action | Climate Crisis

June 29, 2022

U.S. vows to bolster military presence in Europe amid Russia threat

June 29, 2022

China’s tech giants lost their swagger and may never get it back

June 29, 2022

From war to wild weather, global crop problems point to years of high food prices

June 29, 2022

CryptoCom Removes DOGE, SHIB, and 13 Other Altcoins From Earn Program CryptoCom Removes DOGE, SHIB, and 13 Other Altcoins from Crypto Earn 

June 29, 2022

Kyodo News Digest: June 29, 2022

June 29, 2022
198 Japan News

198 Japan News will provide the latest news update as the government facing a growing challenging in preventing Japan from breaking apart along ethnic and religious lines.

198massmedia Group. USA. 3821 Dominion Drive, Dumfries, USA. 22026.

Toll Free 1 888 642 8433.
Contact: info@198japannews.com

LATEST UPDATES

The Global South has the power to force radical climate action | Climate Crisis

U.S. vows to bolster military presence in Europe amid Russia threat

China’s tech giants lost their swagger and may never get it back

From war to wild weather, global crop problems point to years of high food prices

CryptoCom Removes DOGE, SHIB, and 13 Other Altcoins From Earn Program CryptoCom Removes DOGE, SHIB, and 13 Other Altcoins from Crypto Earn 

Kyodo News Digest: June 29, 2022

1990 World Cup winner Matthaus expects Germany to beat Japan

Deborah James, British Cancer Campaigner and Podcaster, Dies at 40

RECOMMENDED

Saso 7 strokes back after Day 3 at Women’s PGA Championship

Inui wins solo free routine for 2nd worlds gold

G-7 agrees Russia is responsible for global food crisis

Ethereum price breaks out as ‘bad news is good news’ for stocks

PM Hasina opens Bangladesh’s longest bridge over River Padma | News

web3 on the platform of your choice — a closer look at Coinbase Wallet’s multi-platform approach | by Coinbase | Jun, 2022

Gold ban will cost Russia $19 billion US

Japanese space robot developer Gitai sets up shop in LA

Copyright © 2021 198 Japan News.

No Result
View All Result
  • Browse the latest updates from Japan
  • Landing Page
  • Buy JNews
  • Support Forum
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2021 198 Japan News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In