New work incoming. Thanks to Ben Bosco Shaw for his care and expertise on this work.
If the Mountain Holds its Breath
A sound installation in the forest along the stream.
While walking through the forest, we experienced a strong bodily sensation when approaching the stream: a feeling of coming into the sound. The river increasingly enveloped us. Moving away, the sound faded and revealed another layer of quiet—the subtle acoustics of wind through the canopy, distant water, and walking on uneven ground.
This shifting acoustic horizon became a central emotional and conceptual reference for the project.
If the Mountain Holds its Breath responds to this experience by foregrounding listening as an ecological act, as a way of crossing time, distance, and landscape. Local children’s chanting and play songs- collected through the Hagiwara archive- songs of wind, water, animals, effort, imbalance, and care, inform and inhabit the soundscape.
The forest’s acoustic ecology is shaped by geological forces far beyond the human scale. The work invites heightened attention to what is present, and asks us to consider implications of changes in the ecological systems through sound: soundscapes as indicators of structure, process, and change—where quiet is a finely balanced condition in which multiple temporalities and species coexist.
The quietness of this place calls us to imagine a future that is led by attunement to the present.
The title of the work is from the Showa era children’s chanting song, Tojin, which is part of a local publication about children’s Songs and games connected to the Hagiwara Archive, held in the library at the Health Promotion Centre. Thanks to Nao for the translated text.
Tojin, Tojin,
Wind, please blow.
If the wind does not blow, the mountains will hold their breath,
and the rivers will cease to flow.
O Tenjin on the mountain peak, please hear our prayer.
We offer you a cup of sacred sake.
So please, send us the wind, strong and in abundance