In Basho's Footsteps
May 31, 2014
In Basho's Footsteps journey, resulting Artist's Novel, Oku no Kuro Gawa
In Basho's Footsteps began a walking artistic journey that began in Tokyo in 2014 where the artist Anya Gleizer and poet Pablo Valcarce hoisted on their backpacks and started to walk steadily north. Their journey would continue for three months and 2,000km as they hiked first north, then west, then south again, in what would become a circumabulation of Tohoku, Japan's main island, following the footsteps of the 17th century haiku poet Matsuo Basho.
In Basho's Footsteps continues as an ongoing project that has resulted in poetry, two solo-exhibitions of Gleizer's paintings, and now the upcoming Artist's Novel Oku No Kuro Gawa. Oku No Kuro Gawa brings together painting, poetry and visual art to create and intermedia work of enormous layering - each medium works independently to convey the displacement, searching, and impermanence that power the plot. Seen as a single whole, the effect of Oku No Kuro Gawa is one of haunting tranquility and quiet - much like peering into the depths of a deep-running river. We cannot discern the layers anymore, but the movement of the river is articulated, slowly, ineluctably, carrying us towards the brink.