Artist Statement

I have never been to Japan but through cultural events, watching Japanese movies and hearing stories from Japan, I believe I have indirectly assimilated some Japanese culture in me. The universality of experience in the modern world is both amazing and scary.

Haikus fascinates me. After having read haiku, I find myself sometimes caught in a trance, when a moment in life evokes an emotion in me, it is as if a haiku had occurred visually before me.

I then began to wonder, seeing that in today’s world where reading is dwindling and video is everywhere; being consumed in ever greater abundance, would the great Japanese poets like Kobayashi Issa and Matsuo Bashō had shot videos for tiktok then rather than writing haiku. Or can the deceiving simplicity and complexity of a haiku be presented in a video form?

I began shooting moments in everyday life and collecting them, making an effort to decipher their meaning (I like to think there is one) and perhaps share them with an audience. For every visual, I have written a haiku but I have removed my writing for you to interpret and perhaps experience writing a haiku yourself, inspired from the imagery provided.

This is my haiku, albeit in a video.