ARTISTS

Dreams of the Beyond in the Abyss

Dreams of the Beyond in the Abyss is an experience-oriented work of art staged in Makido Cave, a limestone cave in Okayama Prefecture. The installation unfolds after the viewers cross the border with reality and enter the otherworldly space of the cave. It awakens all sorts of emotional experience deep in the psyche of the viewers.

On their visit to Makido Cave, the haiku poetry couple Tekkan and Akiko Yosano remarked on its “a bizarre sight; like a road to the underworld.” To set foot in this cave praised for its magical beauty is also an act of dialogue with the perpetual flow of time born of nature, accompanied by a sense of awe and reverence. The chain of singular sights could be likened to a tour of Yomi, the Japanese Hades. This is a theme that has been transmitted from ancient times, not only in the myth of Izanagi in Japan but also the mythology of many other peoples including the Greeks, Mesopotamians, Celts, and Mayans. As a stage setting for transcending time, the cave generates encounters linked to the stories told from the ancient past.

Upon entering the cave, the visitors are led to a space bathed in blue light, which will undoubtedly give them a feeling akin to purification. Because this blue-lit space is positioned near the cave’s mouth, it also provides the final vision after viewers have walked down the narrow and winding path through the cave. Appearing again after the sensation of making one’s way through a psychological maze, the blue light emphasizes the process of internal rebirth.

The viewers in the recess of the cave are enveloped in a red space accented with cluster amaryllises (red spider lilies). The silence of the mystical space in the deepest part of the cave resonates with the red flowers, producing a highly spiritual atmosphere. In the viewers, it calls forth a mix of feelings associated with the dichotomies of allurement and anxiety, life and death, tension and release, ephemerality and universality, resignation and hope, and beginning and end. Therein awaits an experience that could be termed “dreams of the beyond.” Once the visitors who have journeyed through the abyss emerge from the cave, how will the visions they saw there and what they sensed there exert an influence on their reality? The series of experiences reminiscent of a tour of the underworld evokes diverse emotions and inner reactions in the viewers. We fervently hope that their effect will not be confined to a mere admiration of sensory beauty, but also bring the viewers into touch with their existence and outlook on life and death, in a way that they will never forget.