Kodama Mama, 2015
We have often considered what forms the "spirit of a place" can inspire. For this installation at Carkeek Park's temporary outdoor art exhibit - Heaven & Earth VII: Propagation, we explored what happens to the sense of a place, what movement and flow of materials are generated when these "spirits" multiply.
A "kodama", in traditional Japanese folklore, is a tree spirit and sometimes shape-shifter said to adopt the form of animal, human or spirit creature. Kodama have been represented as embodying particular trees or imagined as nature deities freely roaming the forest. Here we imagined the body of a benevolent mama kodama splitting like a seed pod to broadcast new kodama throughout the Carkeek forest.
+ foraged Douglass Fir pine cones, Liquidambar seed pods dipped in tempera paint, grasses and sticks; hand sewn wax paper pockets with cotton and lentil seeds; paper mache mask with gold leaf eyes, chicken wire, rebar and 2X4 infrastructure