Artist work Inspiration:'Global tree Project:Hanging Garden' by Shiniji Turner-Yamamoto

Shinji’s experience:

‘I saw a large uprooted oak in a forest. It lay as if sleeping on a gently sloping grass-covered hill. When I returned a few days later, the tree had disappeared. In place of its roots remained a scar, a mound of raw earth. I envisioned a new tree growing on this mound’

·         He uses words like ‘sleeping’ and ‘gently’ that relate to people, to reinforce the connection between people and nature

·         He relates the mortality of people with the uprooting of the oak tree

-          The disappearance of the tree leaves a scar on its environment like how the death of a loved one can leave their close ones mourning

·         He relates the birth of a newborn with the ‘mound of raw earth’ that is left behind

-          ‘mound of raw earth’ provides space for new life

·         Shinija views the importance between the connection between present and past like Nikohlaus Lang

‘Like Inanna-Ishtar, goddess of Sumerian myth, I wanted to pluck this uprooted tree and bring it to my sacred garden. I wanted the tree to lie and sleep, envisioning a new world like the dream of the world that emerges from the Indian god Vishnu’s navel in the form of a lotus flower.’

·       -   Shinija writes about theory of life after death, in which we are born again as another living being

What?

Uprooted oak tree

What was the motivation and why does it exist?

As historian of religion Mircea Eliade wrote:

‘If the plant and we come from the same uterus, we are twins. We didn’t die from the separation, as do some conjoined twins, but, somehow we need to be together with them.’

•         Humans are connected/ born with nature
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•          We are separated from nature
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•          We have an intrinsic feeling to be together

With his Global Tree Project:

•         Attempts to heal our wounds of this separation
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•          Reopen our connection with trees
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•          New vision through them

Artist:

·         “My creative journey centers on the search for and affirmation of manifestations of universal connections between mankind and nature”

‘In doing so we are freed from limitations of death’

-          To understand the connections between mankind and nature we learn to think and wonder beyond the limitations of death.

-          Eg. When an apple tree dies, the seeds of the apples will plant opportunities for new life

-          Therefore when we die, could there be opportunity for new life? 

·         “My work is inspired by my emotional reactions to specific events in landscape”

-          This relates to my response to Nikohlaus Lang’s ‘Ochre and Sand’ work, in which I associated aspects of his work with experiences and feelings I have had.

·         ‘Indigenous organic materials allow me to enter into the landscape’

‘ the works become a visual record of my experience of landscape’

-          I want my work to communicate the landscape where I had collected the  materials