Follow the trail of a primitive journey by KOM_I of Wednesday Campanella: Returning to the earth in the present era that lost its roots

KOM_I visited Echigo-Tsumari in winter when she was a high school student and stayed overnight at House of Light by James Turrell. Back then she was enthused by making a gigantic snow hut (“kamakura”) using snow fell on and piled up in the garden. When completed, she even made a whole on the ceiling and pretended to be “Turrell”.  The places she is going to visit on this occasion include artworks she is yet to see.

The first stop was “Traces of memory and forest of tomorrow” by KUNIMATSU Kineta who is based in Hokkaido. The artwork was created in 2018 and has become one of the permanent collections. “Looks like a mistery circle” was the first remark she made as she started to speak.

KOM_I: I would say “four columns” is distinctively Japanese motif. These columns can be yorishiro for spirits to decsend to the ground. Activities for “hare” occasions such as sumo and festivals must have taken place in a place where spirits and we (humans) can interact with.

Singing and dancing are also such activities. When I am giving live performance, I do have moments I find myself in “tube”. I feel sense of immersion as if everything freely moves on. I believe that is the status of “the spirits have been descended”.

The space for delicately sumo wrestling match behind the Shrine looks exactly like a stage for live music performance or a theatre. KOM_I says “I would love to perform live concert here.”

KOM_I: I enjoy being in the corn-shaped space. Stage often sits in the elevated position in relation to the audience. However, you are standing at the lowest point in the corn-shaped theatre setting. Such stage is challenging but exciting. Nippon Budokan is one of them.

It is easier to impress if you stands higher to the audience but it is hard to be even heard by them if you are calling from the lowest point. You rather have to cause a whirlpool of energy and draw audience to yourself. Imagine a strong “pulling force” and that makes you to be the centre of attention – it is, I would say, like an ant-lion.

KOM_I realised the columns were actually metal objects that reproduced the texture of a tree as she tapped them. She started to beat out a rhythm as if she does so with percussion and filled the space with sound.

“The placenta – Misyaguchi”  was also created in 2006 by Furugori Hiroshi, not too far from “Ubusuna House”. Represented by “placenta” which protects fetus, it is a sacred and calm space surrounded by earth. KOM_I was welcomed by a snake as if it suggested something. “Feeling very relaxed” said KOM_I while she was inside where she could here nothing but the sound of nature.

KOM_I: It looks like a ruin where religious rituals were conducted. I find it fastinating it is made of trees, earth and stones – somewhat very Japanese materials which are perishable and ephemeral.

Usually, one would wish that an artwork will last for hundreds and thouthands of years but it may well be slightly allogant. The artist may have thought that “we are living now and the work can dissapear as a part of the cycle of such life.”

It has been long time since ETAT started in 2000. I wonder how artworks have been accepted as time goes by. While the artists may not be able to attend their works for long time, the artworks must have become integrated into the respective places and locals would begin to relate themselves to these works as their own. I think how the works are received is a crucial point.

KOM_I had been thinking about placenta consisting of membrace and placenta wrapping a fetus for a while.

KOM_I: Sometimes a baby is born as she breaks a membrace of the placenta. It is a fortunate event as the placenta is a sacred thing which  protects you when travelling from the other world to this world. I have visited a shrine in Suwa with “placenta faith” with Nakazawa Shinichi, a religion scholar.

There is also a theory that “Mishaguchi” means the god of stone, “Shakujin” which was also callled “Shukujin”. “Placenta” and “Mishaguchi” both means “accommodate something”. I heard that both “The Placenta – Misyaguchi” and “Ubusuna House” were created in the same year under the theme of “earth”.  “Ubusuna” also means “conceive” and “giving a birth” which relates to this work – and make all sense.

I feel like I am tracing back in time for the ten months which was spent in my mother’s belly as I walk around the circle in this work. Looking from distance, the upper part of the work are round like a belly. It also reminds me of an ancient tomb – which is a grave. It is a magnificent work if it represents both to dye and to be born in one place.

The reason why KOM_I has deep appreciation of myth and history is because she looks into history and stories of a place as she compose pieces of music.

KOM_I: There is a moment that a story makes sense to me as I pick up and connect things that occur to my mind through such research. What comes out of such process is my work. I wonder if it is somewhat similar to create an artwork.

As “art festival” has taken root in Japan as a method, more artists create works based upon the history of respective sites which are then viewed by audience. What is in common amongst people in the present time is the sense of “lost one’s own roots”. I guess, this is why people have a desire to return to “earth” and “put their feet on ground”.

Many of us may unconsciously feel that we have forgotten something important as we live in highly informed and convenient environment. The primitive works in Echigo-Tsumari invite us to return to trees, soils and womb and give us an opportunity to review where we stand.

The journey with KOM_I continues on.