Exhibition | 1.1.2023
Yanbaru Art Festival 2022-2023
January 14 - April 9, 2023
Prologue to Yanbaru Art Festival, Maki Ohkojima's artwork
Two oceans — impregnated by the sea, impregnated by the sea
Before we were born here, we were all wrapped in a membrane called a sporangium and drifted around in amniotic fluid as tiny nuclei.
The amniotic fluid of mammals is a thin salt water. This is the same salinity as that of the sea when vertebrates were born in the sea, or the ancient sea, according to anatomist Shigeo Miki.
I have always felt that the ocean is the soup of life, but perhaps the ocean is also the amniotic fluid of this planet Earth.
Or perhaps the planet itself is a giant spore that holds our life.
In the ancient seawater stored in our mothers’ bellies, we divide repeatedly, bathing our entire bodies in its rich nourishment.
The preembryonic embryo first looks like a fish, then like an amphibian, then like a reptile, and finally metamorphoses into a mammalian form.
Then, after ten months and ten days of life’s evolutionary journey, we will go through the birth canal and come down to earth.
Philosopher Emanuele Coccia said, “Plants have made an ocean where no ocean exists.
They transformed the world into a huge ocean of atmosphere and transmitted their oceanic habits to all living things.
Yes, the land is also an ocean, wrapped in an amniotic membrane of ozone created by the breath of plants.
Outside of us, the ocean embraces us.
An ocean that is within us and is conceived by us.
At the elementary school by the sea, we think of the two oceans that keep us alive.
Place of exhibition
- Ogimi Village Former Shioya Elementary School (Ogimi Utility Center)
- [Hours] 11:00-17:00 / Open only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays
Yanbaru Art Festival Overview
- Organized by Yanbaru Art Festival Executive Committee
- Co-organized by Ogimi Village Shima Zenbu de Okina Festival
- Period: January 14, 2023 (Sat) – April 9, 2023 (Sun)
- Admission: Free