Friday
April 5, 2013
"Native Land” Photography of Ai
Takahashi opens in Patricia’s Wellness Arts Gallery. Opening Reception is from 5:00
P.M.
to 8:00 P.M.
Ai Takahashi, visiting
scholar, says that landscapes are at once events of the earth and the stage on
which our human lives evolve to become our histories. As the layers
of our lives accumulate, just like the geological beds of the earth, our
existence becomes rooted in its layers. Rural agrarian life (inaka) has long stood in juxtaposition to an urban existence, to a world overflowing with information. But now the idea of inaka as “an ordinary farming community,” struggles to sustain itself. In my work I seek out the voices of people living in such communities. While tangible, their voices are not to be found in textbooks or the news media. Still, collectively these modest voices represent the grounded history of these small farming communities.
Life in these rural villages, rooted in the community members’ sense of responsibility for place, provides an abundance that I find prescient. Inherent in village life is gentleness and tranquility, a severity and awe, a pantheistic prayer to god as the whole of creation. On my travels I search for the roots of Japaneseness through an exploration of human agency and disappearing cultural traditions.
Visit Ai’s website at http://takahashiai.jimdo.com/works/yama-mura-nora/
The Wellness Arts Gallery
is located in Patricia’s Wellness Arts CafĂ© & Quilter’s Comfort Teas at 725 West Kirkwood Avenue (at the western entrance
of Arts Row). For information call 812-334-8155.
The gallery features the
work of local and global artist and craftspeople. Open Tuesday through
Saturday, 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm; first Fridays until 8:00
pm.
For information call
812-334-8155. Sign up for our mailing list or contact us at
quilterscomfort@gmail.com.
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