ADELINE KUEH
ACROSS THE OCEANS AND THE SEAS, THE BLOSSOMS SPEAK
Photography
ABOUT THE WORK
It started with some pickled cherry blossoms that Homa bought in Kyoto in 2016. Since then, the occasional hanami or flower viewing had happened sporadically with a flower or two in our champagne or sangria. I picked up more from Kyoto in December 2019. When the coronavirus came to fore in late January, this action of flower viewing in a cup was shared over the Chinese New Year meal with my parents.
Aside from being a metaphor for life itself, in its ephemerality, the pickled versions gave me comfort during the period of confinement. I started bringing in other flowers (dried butterfly pea and some wild ones) into the home, and into my drinking vessels. There were many others aside from the two shown here. Our small ninth floor apartment needed some elements of nature, however tiny.
There was also a palpable sense of darkness and anxiety as family and friends went into isolation, got sick as well as some having died. Motojirō Kajii’s story resonated constantly, with its first two lines:
There lie cadavers buried under the cherry blossoms!
This is a truth that you must accept. 1
And still, we view more flowers as we wait...
_____________1 Motojirō Kajii, Sakura no ki no shita ni wa (櫻の樹の下には, Beneath the Cherry Trees), in Poetry and Poetics (Shi to Shiron), December 1928.
See also https://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/japanese/under-the-cherry-blossoms/
REFLECTION
Excerpt from Under the Cherry Blossoms
by Motojirō Kajii
Translated by Bonnie Huie
November 2014
There lie cadavers buried under the cherry blossoms!
This is a truth that you must accept. For how else could the flowers of the cherry tree be so magnificent in their bloom? I spent the past several days feeling terribly ill at ease, as I was unable to accept such a beauty. But now, at last, the truth has finally sunk in. There lie cadavers buried under the cherry blossoms. You must accept this.
_____
See details in https://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/japanese/under-the-cherry-blossoms/
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Adeline Kueh is a senior lecturer at LASALLE's McNally School of Fine Arts. She makes installations, photography and sound works that reconsider the relationship we have with things and rituals around us. Her works are imbued with a sense of desire and longing, and act as modern day totems that explore personal histories and overlooked moments. Using drawing as a conceptual tool, Adeline tries to map out the historical trajectories across time and space through her use of found objects and new production.