Container

The Eye of a Needle

2021

wooden crate, styrene foam and video projection

dimensions variable

Exhibition: Collection 1 Inner Cosmology

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa https://www.kanazawa21.jp/data_list.php?g=17&d=1791

The Eye of a Needle combines the silhouette of a sea cave in the Goto Islands called 'Harinomendo (meaning needle hole in the Goto dialect),' which was an object of worship for Kakure Kirishitans ("Hidden" Christians), with images of the seascape seen from Portugal, where the missionaries who brought Christianity to Japan set sail. The Kakure Kirishitans, in a state of extremity during the forbidden period, found this mere rocky space as an object of worship to keep the light of faith from the other side of the sea burning in secret. The reason why faith works despite differences in form is that the essence of prayer is born in the hearts of people and does not depend on its form. Isn't this the universal power of the human heart that transcends the boundaries of faith? When the transformed form overlaps with the form of the beginning, we are reminded of this fact.