11
When the mochi hit my chest

In mid-October, de Onkruidenier’s member Jonmar van Vlijmen left for the Kyoto Kinugasa Art Residence for community to carry on research on Future Gardening in walled gardens in the city known for spirituality and a deep respect for nature that is fully intertwined with everyday life. Kyoto is laid out in a rigid grid of horizontal and vertical lines that give residents orientation to the points of the compass and the position of the sun. The city is arranged and built on the fall of light beams and the shape of shadows. In the north, important temples lie against the foot of the hills because in the shadows, from the north side of the city, that is where the wild spirits that the city needs to be protected from, reside. The KKARC residency is in northwest Kyoto in a residential area close to the hills that surround Kyoto. There is room for two artists at a time. It is a private residency attached to the Anewal gallery. 

Jonmar:
‘I left for Japan because my right brain and all the organs and limbs in my body wanted to learn how to develop a deeper connection with nature and my interest in shinto. And my left brain left for Japan wondering how inspiration is shaped in nature. What mechanisms work on the creation of meaning and purpose, and how is it possible that people can see and meet their ancestors when they are in contact with a tree? I explored over five weeks what this means to me personally during the research phase of the project.I am doing research on my own role in ecosystems, how can I relate to a garden’s ecosystem and what happens when I no longer see a garden and my body as two separate entities? In the research I stumbled upon the ancestral gestures of nature worship deep into the Middle Ages that took place here in North Holland. Since that find, I don’t look at a white pebble the same; it could have been a sacrificial ritual in another era.’

Inherited tradition
During the residency, Jonmar visited many gardens.
He wanted to learn to understand why they have a certain spirituality.

Jonmar:
‘Can I experience this without my left-brain falling into trying to understand how it is composed? I read about the Sakuteiki, a manifesto composed 1000 years ago that lays down the gardening principles that are still followed today. Composing a garden by following the desire of stones, mimicking the water balance and bringing the landscape together as a miniature to borrow the surrounding landscape (called Shakkei), they still guide contemporary garden architecture. An example of a garden I look up that has tried to follow more of a free style while respecting tradition is Landscape architect Shigemori Mirei’s Tofuku-ji garden. He sees a garden as a work of art, a tuft of moss as a brushstroke, and mastered bridging Eastern and Western garden principles into a highly styled whole. He starts a garden by adding a few stones and rocks and following their desire, then the gardens are for eternity.’

Deep understanding or eastern easthetics
In many gardens, you can see how trees are supported by poles and aesthetically placed ropes. Many branches of trees are deftly strung and the totality of all elements in the garden is in harmony. Jonmar was amazed by the beauty of the gardens, the crowds of tourists who flock to them and the realisation that his idea of beauty changes when he read how long the garden has been maintained in the same place and in the same way. Most gardens lack plants because they are mortal and too mobile. They would only disrupt the harmony in the play of emptiness, shade and relationship with the surrounding landscape being cultivated.

When does gardening become a mantra?
The gardens Jonmar visited in Japan are very well maintained and gardeners are part of the garden and gardening experience. They wear neatly ironed garden uniforms and their movements are very much styled and refined. The knowledge of trimming trees and maintaining a gravel field is passed down from parent to child and maintenance teams are often family-owned and operated gardens for dozens of generations. Thus, gardens are intertwined with these family histories. In Japanese gardens, you see how all the trees are trimmed, branches are guided with wires to control the composition in the play of light and shade. Jonmar has come to see it as a gesture of tenderness, of respect and love of nature. Perhaps this is the biggest transformation I have gone through during my residency. Although the downside of this control lurks.

Ancestral responsibility
When Jonmar attended a workshop organised by artist Takako Hamano in the farming village of Nirono, near Kochi, he was able to meet an organic civil engineer who criticised the way many gardens in Japan are maintained without a deep understanding of the ecological principles behind certain elements of a Japanese garden. One intersecting example that made him think a lot was the way many poles are placed near trees to support the trees’ branches and keep paths accessible to visitors. Originally, these poles were burnt on the underside before being driven into the ground. The carbon thus given to the soil led to the growth of bacterial cultures that attracted the roots of the trees because that is where the release of nutrients was stimulated. Thus, pole, tree branch, stump and root became part of a cycle that fused together. Nowadays, you don’t see the poles being burnt and they are often installed purely for aesthetic reasons or in line with tradition. During the workshop in Nirono, he got to know this method better by learning about Satoyama, the traditional way in which a community manages an agricultural area at the foot of the mountain and connects it with caring for the mountain where ancestors were buried on top. Growing rice is then accompanied by the idea that by doing so, you are actually eating a piece of your ancestors. This feeling seems indescribable and wonderful.

When mochi hit my chest
On the same weekend of the Satoyama workshop, a local shinto festival took place at the shrine.

Jonmar:
‘I was excited to experience this traditional ritual and act of shinto as an agriculture religion. An old tree carrying a kami, different rituals performed in the right order, dance, singing, performance. They all came together and I got a goose-bump feeling. That feeling was eternalised when the shinto monks threw mochis at the crowd and 1 mochi hit my chest rock hard in the process. That same feeling resurfaced when I travelled to Tokyo a week later and saw the megalomanic Louis Vuitton shop windows with flashing lights and logo-tattooed snails, ostriches and horses surrounded by hundreds of young people photographing and filming this experience for their TIKTOK channel.’

Cultivating the soul of a plant
Later in the residency, Jonmar was hosted at the National Institute for Genetics in Mishima.

Jonmar:
‘I was received at the institute and a whole programme was put together for me with meetings with various scientists and PhD students. A large cold room was opened for me called the cultivation room. Gardens on agar and artificial ecosystems are isolated there from any outside influence. I learn that day that more and more plants on earth are developing carnivorous traits, that scientists have been researching this for several years. We exchange about the dangers of isolating ecosystems and colours on flower petals are compared to the surface of a CD-ROM. Professor Masato Yamamichi tells me how plants themselves do not think ‘now I’m going to develop this or that’, no it is the change of habitat that determines which plants and animals stay and which disappear. Folklore plays a key role in protecting species shows me scientific research. I end the visit with answers and more questions about the human role in ecosystems.’

~ Future Gardening
Embodying a ritual of relating 

~ Made possible by
AFK – Amsterdam fund for the Arts, Stimuleringsfonds, Dutch Embassyin Japan and de Onkruidenier

~ Special thanks to
KKARC / Anewal Gallery, Club Oma, Alice Smits, Takako Hamano, Kumi Hiroi, Samar Nasrullah Khan, Jikke van Loon, Jacqueline Heerema, National Institute for Genetics, KKARC / Anewal Gallery, Bas Valkcx