Burying a Sound in a Bomb Shelter
An exhibition with Lane Diko
Hello again from a humid Kyoto. The air-conditioners around the city are starting to hum and we're in that short lush green stretch before the rainy season arrives, which can't be too far off now. It feels like the right week to send you something about water.
Photographer Lane Diko and I spent the last month exhibiting at The Terminal here in Kyoto, as part of an annual group exhibition called Shitsurai. This year’s theme was PAUSE and the piece we presented was in two parts: Lane’s photographs hanging in one of the basement bomb shelters underneath the building, and upstairs in the garden. My sound recording of a suikinkutsu plays into both areas.
I made a short film about it. It’s mostly footage of the basement, which is dark and damp and quite beautiful, with a little about the suikinkutsu itself: a ceramic jar that is somewhat of a musical instrument; buried under a stone basin in a Japanese garden.
The film is also about something I didn’t expect when I started this project. The recording we captured at Enkōji Temple sounded nothing like the peaceful experience of sitting there in the garden listening. Most of the work, it turned out, was pulling the sound into a much nicer shape.
The exhibition closed last week, so by the time this reaches you the room has already been emptied and turned back into a bomb shelter. Which is kind of why I made this film. Please enjoy.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for noticing.
SJF
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