Moving Plants 2010
We live between the plants. Everywhere, from the bank in front of my house to the vacant lots in back of the nearby public housing complex, there are plants. I can't remember when I became taller than the plants and started to pass right by them.
I tried to find out the names of the plants around here, and I discovered that many of them are far from their original homeland. This made me realize that there was a time when these plants weren't part of the landscape in this country and that nobody can guarantee they will still be here in the future. Before anyone notices, the plants may have changed.
From between the plants, one might be able to see buildings and people's coming and goings in France, or the vast wilderness and the pyramids in Mexico. When I realize this, I start to think that what I can see now or have seen from between the plants in the past is extremely valuable. Many species of plants cross the sea in the midst of human activity. The relationship between plants and the things we see from between them is not inevitable. It was only a coincidence that I encountered these plants at any given time in any given place.
We take it for granted that plants cannot move in the way that animals do, and that they always stay in the same place in the same silent way. But plants really do travel. They perceive the world outside in a way that we don't understand and they do their best to survive in the place they are rooted. Plants turn their flowers toward the sun and send their roots to explore the soil. What have they learned about the bank and the housing complex? How does the soil in a distant land feel to them? The space around us is filled with plants, changing its composition as time goes by.
These photographs show the things I have seen from between the plants and are also a natural history of the times and places I have been.
私たちは植物のあいだに暮らしている。家の前の土手や団地の裏に、あらゆるところに植物は繁茂している。私の背丈がそれらの植物の背丈を遥かに越え、ただその前を通り過ぎるようになったのはいつのころだったか。草むらのあいだからかつて見たものを私はうまく思い出せなかった。
土手や団地の裏に生えている植物の名前を調べていくと、その多くが本来それがあった土地を遠く離れた地で生きていることがわかる。これらの植物がこの国の風景の中に存在しなかった時が確かにあり、この先ずっと私の周りにあると誰も保証できないということに気づくようになる。いつの間にか、植物は入れ替わるのだ。
草むらのあいだからはフランスの建物や人の営みが、あるいはメキシコの原野やあのピラミッド群が見えていたかもしれない。そう思い至ったとき、この草むらのあいだから見えるもの、かつて見たものが、実はとても貴重なものであるように思えた。多くの植物は人の活動によって海を渡る。そのような世界では、草むらと草むらのあいだから見える事物に必然的な関係はない。私はこれらの植物と同じ時間／同じ場所に偶然居合わせたのだった。
"Moving Plants" at The Third Gallery Aya, 2010 (2010.8.31- 9.18)
Comical & Cynical at Dawn center in Osaka, 2007
