Dialogica

James Jack + Ruri Watanabe Dialogica 2017 (still frame from 30’49” digital video)

TENKU Art Festival
Museum of the Sky
Tomi City, Nagano, Japan

This collaborative artwork made in the mountains of Kyushu at a unique site where local legends say a Chinese monk who brought the first tea leaves to Japan has been sitting in meditation since the 7th century. Artists Watanabe and Jack walk down a ledge to the tip of the same protruding rock to share a “dialogue” together with the past. Starting in silence, this contemplative work grows in a meditative way along with the plethora of sounds present in the burgeoning summer forest. Near the end, one of the artists slowly returns across the ledge while the other continues to sit indefinitely on the stone of meditation.