Fieldwork A

Shundo Aoyama
Became a disciple of the chief priest of Muryo-ji at the age of five Entered the priesthood at the age of fifteen.

At present she is a chief priest of the Aichi Semmon Niso-do, a training temple for female Soto Zen priests and is also in charge the temples of Shobo-ji and Muryou-ji. As a chief priest of the Aichi Semmon Niso-do, her activities encompass not only nurturing the young Buddhist nuns but also lecturing, writing books and teaching lay people to practice zazen. She makes special efforts to spread the practice of zazen among the general public through the tea ceremony and traditional Japanese flower arrangement.

November 11th

We went to the zen temple where we planned to make a formal visit the next day.
The craftsmen were busy retiling the temple roof. One of the priests walked with us and enlightened us about the temple's history and the life of a practicing Buddhist.

In the afternoon:
We talked about the group's theme having lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Despite the services of an interpreter, we found it very difficult to exchange opinions with John about the theme.

In the evening:
We walked in the temple of Osu Kannnon and through the shopping arcade. Maria was astounded at the noise coming from the pinball parlors.

November 12th

In the morning:
We headed for the temple where we were going to attend a gathering called "Thanks to Food". All our members were a little perplexed at the atmosphere of quietude, as it was a bit different from that of the previous day. We enjoyed the vegetarian lunch, listened to a performance of the "Heike Biwa", a Japanese lute, and after having some hand-made tofu, we practiced zazen.

In the afternoon:

We came back to the college and each member announced his or her personal record within the group. Again, discussion about the theme and the mode of presentation was challenging.

November 13th

We began preparing for the presentation in the morning. The majority of our remaining work was the preparation of images on the computer. Due to the limited number of Macs, only a few of our members participated in this. Our presentation began.

We wanted to do what could be done only in this workshop, and set out to do fieldwork without determining a theme beforehand. We visited various places, saw things, and let ourselves feel genuinely free. We had an experience in the Zen temple that gave us a notion for our theme; in the temple yard, beneath the great bell tower, we saw some footwear, each with a single stone placed upon it. All of us thought that the stones must be imbued with some specific, religious meaning. But we soon found out that the stones were only there as weights, to keep the wind from blowing the footwear away. The misunderstanding fascinated us.We were also intrigued by the curiosity of one of our international participants, Maria, who came from Poland. She was interested in every object and every shape in the temple yard. We realized immediately that even though we may share space and time, our thoughts and perceptions are as individual as we are.

Afterwards, we talked and determined a theme based on our experiences in the Zen temple. We came to the conclusion that if we share the same physical space, by knowing what someone else feels or thinks, we can see the differences in our sensibilities. Through this experience we can understand one another and build a new relationship. At the same time, the same kind of process goes on when we change our judgement or image of others. We realized that this relationship we were forming would continue to change endlessly, both during and after the workshop.

So we made this relationship our theme. The relationship represents a form of communication. The relationship changes endlessly, and perpetually. Even after we had decided on a theme, however, we spent a long time talking about the appropriate way to present our findings, considering the differences in language and in our values. We were exhausted by the discussion, which got pretty heated, and finally decided to focus on our perceptual images and lay less weight on verbal communication.

Group A's primary theme was 'communication'. We began our group work aiming to make a visual presentation expressing the ever-changing relationship among our members, who not only live in different regions, but speak different languages--how can we reach a mutual understanding? Each of the six members recorded and put into words the feelings or thoughts he had in each location. Based on these records and words, we chose materials and textures to reflect the sensibility or personality of each person.

The members' viewpoints are hidden in the hexagonal format showing the relationship among the six of us, and will appear every time you click. Their images will remain, even though they may be indiscernable. We are trying to produce something like a small cosmos, perpetually expanding. This cosmos mirrors the new and changing forms of our relationship as we overlap and mingle.


Maria Gorska Competion Winner	Kenji Wada Aichi Pref. University of Fine Arts & Music	Akiko Amaha Musashino Art University

Takuya Kokura Nagoya City University, School of Design and Architecture, graduate school	Yoshikazu Komori Nagoya University of Arts, graduate school	Hidehumi Hayashi Nagoya Zokei University of Art & Design