kagami
鏡
This film was made as part of my Phd research.
Below are a set of stills.
This 12 minute film was shot in Tōkyō over the course of one month in 2018. It features a single mirror, a direct reference to the Shinto shrine mirror, Yata no Kagami, housed in Ise Grand Shrine. The film documents the mirror travelling to different spaces of nature around the city. Nature in this context is engaging both the organic, but also nationalistic, idealised and monumentalised understandings.
In each shot, the camera begins by zooming in to the surface of the mirror, which reveals to the viewer an image of nature. It then zooms out to show the mirror as an object situated and immersed in urban space. This work is a response to both Atelier Bow-Wow’s methodological use of zooming and an interview with Sugawara Daisuke who conceptualised the theory of Japan-ness as stemming from a capacity to reflect nature in spite of urban limitations.