KEIKA BOOK

When I first began working on the art project in Watari, my initial thoughts turned to the intersection between myself and this town. Born in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, I experienced the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake at the age of six and lived there until I was eighteen. Because I was so young and my relatives were fortunately spared from significant harm, my sense of being a "survivor" had faded to the point where I only occasionally thought, "Oh, that’s right—I was affected too." While forgetting can have both positive and negative sides, the reality remains that in Japan, whether in Watari or Kobe, we always live side-by-side with natural disasters. I felt there was something within our daily lives that needed to be re-examined—a way to truly live amidst such uncertainty.

Upon settling into my new home in Watari, I felt the need to record my daily impressions. Memories fade; both the good and the bad eventually slip away. To me, someone with a particularly poor memory, Saya Kubota once said, "In a way, that just means you are truly living in the 'now'." Taking her words to heart, I decided to keep a visual diary—one drawing a day—accompanied by a short note on what moved me, what I learned for the first time, or how I felt, as a way to leave a trace of my life as it passed.

Petrified wood (silicified wood) is a fossilized form of a tree. While coal is another type of wood fossil—formed when water is squeezed out, leaving only carbon (also known as carbonized wood)—petrified wood is different. Over vast stretches of time underground, the tree's cells are replaced by silica. It slowly turns into stone while perfectly preserving the original organic structure of the wood.

Perhaps the "sparkles" I find in my daily life are things that others might feel or notice as well. Though these are purely my personal experiences of living in Watari, they might be things that transcend both time and place. While reflecting on the beauty of petrified wood—born from the accumulation of ages—I seek to crystallize the time I have spent here.

February 2024
Eiji Uozumi