The Art of Staying Still: Sayonara #1

Somewhat late in its update, I feel compelled to document my last week or so in Kagawa, and the beauty and angst over so many goodbyes.

I finished classes late in July amidst dinners and lunches and last classes with all my students, may of whom have become amazing friends in the past year or two. There is a shrine in Kotohira, 20 minutes from where I live, called Konpira San. It is famed for being a potent of good luck for seafaring journeys and sailors and fisherman from all over Japan come to ask for blessing before embarking upon the ocean. Not one, but two of my classes went to the effort of buying me good luck charms for my upcoming transoceanic journey. As one class happily informed me, there is a custom that once one has returned safely from the sea, it is proper to return to the shrine to pay respects and thanks to the Gods. Thus ensuring my obligation to return to Kagawa at some stage!

After finishing classes I was contractually obliged to report to work for the next two weeks until I could take up the rest of my holiday time and leave on the 8th August. At the same time, we had a wave of exchange students coming and going and everyone in the office, except for me was frantically busy and continually exhausted. Unable to help I sat going slightly nuts, studying Japanese and surfing the internet. On my last day, because of the officiousness of Japanese bureaucracy, I had to go in for two hours, but ironically no one was around!

However I had a lunch and art gallery date with my excellent friend Yukari, and we trotted off together to see the amazing new exhibit at Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art where they had an exhibition showing by Ernesto Neto, Brazilian installation artist extraordinaire.

He makes room like spaces using a variety of fabrics, mainly cotton and nylon using mainly white with splashes of colour. Unlike so much art where one is expected to appreciate from afar his works are sensual pieces that invite the viewer to play and become supremely involved. For someone just released from the bondage of office incarceration it was a playground for big kids. Huge beanbags filled with plastic balls like one finds in ikea playrooms for kids, beanbag dresses you can try on, tunnels filled with strange nylon tubes stretching from floor to a low ceiling you had to stoop under. Rarely one was also allowed to take photographs, and after playing for a while Yukari ran downstairs to grab her cellphone, whereupon we played some more taking stupendously silly photography. Here are some of the prints she later gave me: