[Title] Journey in Progress
[Artist] Kohei Oda
[Date] July 14 to September 26, 2016
Within the natural world, there are life forms that are impossible to fully grasp through normal human sensitivities and perceptions of time. In contrast to lush green plants that live on just the right amounts of sunlight, water and air, there are also plant forms that are unable to define whether they are alive or dead with the naked eye. Yet, they are definitely alive and function in vibrant life. For this latest window display, we called upon Kohei Oda, a botany artist specializing in cactus creations, to craft a landscape capable of shattering our fixed notions of plants.
The hill within this window scene is covered with objects that most of us have never seen. They include spherical items with swirling radial lines, spindly growths streaming in the wind, cocoon-like shapes covered with white fuzz, and silhouettes lit up with golden needles. It may take some time before we realize that these shapes are in fact plants.
The cactus portrayed here definitely changes our conventional wisdom about plants. They require hardly any water to survive and wrap themselves in bristles for protection from the sunlight. Because the risks they face rise in direct proportion to any increase in scale, they remain small in size. They do not choose comfortable habitats, but rather harsh environments. The cactus pursues the sole objective of survival for centuries.
What is running through the minds of the two human beings who have just set foot in this world, taking the strange and unknown forms of life in hand?
Decorating the smaller windows are dried plants. The cast-off skins of vegetation that has lost its moisture have lost color and resilience, but they project genuinely lovely silhouettes. The expressions of these exotic plants create images of fluid contours, with Hermès products tastefully intertwined with those distinctive manifestations.
While adapting to their natural surroundings, these plants, which bolster growth while altering in appearance, openly challenge our perceptions regarding the beauty of the plant. Hermès creations, outgrowths of the techniques and aesthetic sensations passed on by human beings, coexist with proxies for the natural strength within the prevailing theme of “Nature.”
Kohei Oda
Born in Hiroshima in 1976, Kohei Oda traveled the world extensively during his 20s. During his stay in Paris, he was inspired by a select shop spatial production undertaken by a local floral artist. Upon returning to Japan, he initiated an approach to spatial design rooted in floral arrangements and ornamental foliage plants. Sensing the limits of rigidly uniform expressions developed from floral and plant components, Oda was deeply impacted by the comment of an art collector in reaction to the sight of a plant damaged in the delivery process: “There is infinite beauty in the struggles waged by plants.” This moved him to incorporate the question of whether or not such vegetation projects a “positive image” as a benchmark for the selection of plants to be used in his works. He resolved to grasp the sheer loveliness of flora from a unique worldview, pioneering a path of collection and handling of “one-of-a-kind” plant creations. To more clearly speak to that vision, in 2012 Oda opened a shop christened “Qusamura” (literally, “Grassy Place”).