Saturday, May 28, 2011

The making of "Tsunami"/part 1.


津:日語漢字『港口』之意

Tsunami is a book I made for my "Illustration Methods & Media" class. For the final project of this class, we were asked to make a book about "the history of something". I had one week, spring break, to figure out my concept for the project. 

It was a friday, I remember. I skipped my Illustration class cause the spring break was launching. I went home early and no one was in the apartment. The entire floor was so quiet. Sunlight fell down through the white curtains and the air felt so serene. I logged on my facebook and then found out the serenity actually came from the silent elegy for the tragedy happened on that day in Japan.

在一個春日午後,『海嘯』這本小書冊的概念逐漸漫生,就在那個午後,臉書上寫滿了對日本的祝願以及沈痛。原本想好好享受春假的我,受到這起事件的某種磁場影響,整週春假都過的恍恍惚惚。原本這一週,我應該要構思一門課的期末作業:關於「X的歷史」的一本書;一週後,當我向老師提交構想,「海嘯的歷史」變成為了主題。

I was overwhelmed by the tsunami for the whole week. So I decided to make a book about "the history of tsunami". Well, the problem is "does tsunami has its own history?" When the ocean water shakes dramatically high because of earthquake, what is it doing is nothing but expressing itself. This natural phenomenon will only be called a "disaster" when it encounters human beings. And when people face disasters, they usually make records. Then I thought of the famous record about tsunami in art history: "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", a woodblock print by Japanese master Hokusai.

問題在於,這不是肉粽、韭菜盒,還是動漫或國共內戰,我們在談的是「海嘯」這個東西的歷史。我還在唸地理學的時候,頂多接觸過地球的歷史,所謂的自然史也需要所指涉的對象為一個固定存在的物體,然而海嘯是多麼難得而莫測?其實,無論是地震或是海嘯,對於地球本身來說只是毫髮一動,唯有與人相遇時才會成為災害,而人類似乎有著紀錄災害的強迫傾向,我不免聯想到了藝術史範疇中很有名的一次日本海嘯紀錄:葛飾北齋的【神奈川沖浪裏】;這一幅令多少古今藝術家、設計師深受啓發的木刻版畫,紀錄了19世紀中葉發生在神奈川一起海嘯事件,從此定錨,因而產生歷史。
             

With the book, I want to create a conversation between Hokusai's work and mine. Using the tsunami incident happened in March. 2011 in Japan as my subject, I dragged out a space of time from Hokusai's tsunami. 

思考至此,我決定延續自己的風格,與北齋之版畫對話,以2011年3月日本大海嘯為紀錄主體,和北齋之海嘯相對,拉出時間縱深。簡言之,我要做的就是2011年版的【神奈川沖浪裏】。        



波:日語漢字『海浪』之意




to be continued...

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