When I was collecting stories from people, an image of a pine wood kept reoccurring as being a 'natsukashii' place* of Awashima. You can no longer see this graceful pine wood view along Umaki and Naga beaches, as it was spoilt by termites. What if you could walk around this pine wood in my work? Visit this place which you can no longer physically get to? It is neither just 'beautiful' nor a 'lucky symbol', it is also a deep pine wood which embraces and conceals things, like a border between this world and another world.
Hamano Oinarisan is a Japanese Inari god and his shrine near the beach on Awashima. Next to this cosy little shrine, an empty former Inari shrine remains standing. Here 'Kokiriko' a trickster-like child and 'Akaoni' a red ogre pass by to play and disappear again. "Hamano Oinarisan A pine wood tale" notes fragments of scenery where Kokiriko and Akaoni play together. Scenes that may have been or may not have been, scenes which feel both real and unreal.
*'Natsukashi' place is somewhere you long for, where you feel home even though you have never been there before. |
  Wall drawing, sound, animation and bookwork together tell a story of Awashima, which may have been or may not have been, in a former shrine space called 'Hamano Oinarisan'.
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