2000
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan
Bonzai tree made with over 100 light bulbs, installed at an abandoned kimono factory.
Metal, bulbs, vinyl
54 x 96 x 14 inch
The Echigo-Tsumari region is home to some of the oldest, refined arts and crafts in Japan, also producing a quintessential cultural symbol of Japanness: “When the kimono is put on, the wearer is tied to more than nine centuries of Japanese culture, history and protocol.” (R.F. Schniderman in Robes of Elegance). This craft industry has almost completely died out in the region, a consequence of change consequent upon urbanization and modernization. The kimono is a reminiscence of a vanishing Japan. But the transition of one cultural episteme into another does not completely eradicate all past traces, but inaugurates affective symbols from vestiges.