About the artwork

The artist took notice of the fact that the word “takara” (treasure) derives from “ta kara’ (from a rice field). The large boat made of local rice straw was given a role of connecting the present to another world, like a “treasure boat,” carrying dreams and happiness. On the last night with a full moon before the end of the Triennial, the boat sailed toward heaven in flames, among prayers and songs of the local people and in front of a crowd, then became ashes, and returned to the earth as nutrition for the rice fields. This work, which became nutrition for the rice growing in the rice field, was recycled into the environment through human bodies who ate the rice.