Saturday, March 23, 2013

AI TAKAHASHI PHOTOGRAPHY




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.