A Character by Silje Ree
A Character by Silje Ree
Having recently relocated to Tokyo, I keep stopping on the street to look around, taking in the eclectic buildings, the many winter flowers and the handwritten menu signs. Everything feels new here, even the mundane feels special. The first few weeks before I started working, I was able to wake up without anything on my to-do list – free to explore. I was amazed by the true blue skies, the first thing I saw every morning. Even in December, the sun rises early in Japan. A striking contrast to the gloomy morning hours of both Norway and England – the two countries where I have previously resided. Waking up, I have been energised and excited, much more motivated than I usually am during this season. This has been my first time visiting Japan and only my second time leaving Europe and I cannot quite grasp how far away I have gone. At night, the moon here is sideways and my friends and family go to sleep as I awake.
In the series, “Saku Sakura”, I have been exploring Japanese writing systems, brush strokes and nature. I wanted to play with the language, although my knowledge of it is still very restricted. The poems focus on one of Japan`s writing systems called ひらがな (Hiragana) even though I cannot write the letters correctly yet. My foreign hand creates the wrong shapes, the wrong compositions. I have never liked my handwriting and having to be precise when I write pains me. My letters have always been wonky and in these poems, I embraced the わびさび (wabi-sabi) – the imperfect.
ひらがな
わびさび
To practice writing Japanese characters correctly a square grid system is used. Using this grid, the strokes can be positioned to obtain the correct proportions. The different characters need to be practised over and over again in order to learn how to write them without this grid. I am only just getting started.
Another Japanese square is おりがみ (origami), beautiful paper folded into incredible shapes; and so I wanted to use the origami paper as the backdrop to my spirited, yet juvenile and uninstructed attempts at しょどう(shodo) – Japanese calligraphy. Knowing that my knowledge of the characters was far from adequate to attempt Japanese calligraphy properly, I chose to do it in my own way. Using an ink stone and a writing brush, I created line drawings inspired by deconstructed Hiragana characters and local nature. The words appearing in the poems are さくら (sakura) which is the Japanese cherry blossom and がいじん (gaijin) the word for foreigner. For many tourists visiting Japan to see sakura is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Sakura bloom from late March to early April, but even in January trees start to bloom here. The trees and the flowers play a central part in these poems with the title translating to 'blooming sakura'. Since arriving, the early blooming trees have been a promise of what is to come: spring and independence.
At the moment, I am relying on English when it comes to buying food and getting by, but this is not always possible. Sometimes the language barrier is too big, preventing me from paying my bills and signing up to Yoga class. It is crucial for me to develop language skills in order to stop relying on other people and technology. I am highly aware of me being a foreigner in this country and the fact that I will always be one. I try my best to fit in and to be respectful of everyone around me. Being different has never been an issue for me and hopefully, it never will be. By slowly figuring out the language, I hope to learn how to live in harmony with the nature and the people here.
In my poems, I try to capture the simplicity that Japan has taught me to embrace. I feel lighter, more at ease and more forgiving here. I have not been here long, and it might be naive of me to feel that I have fully transformed in such a short period of time. Maybe my Nordic ways – my worries and hurriedness – will catch up with me soon, but for now I am enjoying using the calligraphy brush without a care, to express how I feel right here, right now. Hopefully finding my true いきがい (ikigai) soon.
おりがみ
しょどう
さくら
がいじん
いきがい
About the artist
Silje Ree (b. 1994 in Stavanger, Norway) is a bilingual visual poet, artist and publisher living in Tokyo, Japan. She is the founder of Mellom Press, devoted to multilingual visual poetry. Her curation of online exhibitions was awarded the Bookartbookshop Award 2020. She has studied at Forfatterstudiet in Bø, and Kingston University, and has a master’s in Visual Arts: Book Arts from the University of Arts London 2018-20. Sampson Low published her poetry pamphlets Melodilaust tone fall (2019) and E∩N (2018). Other publications, exhibitions and performances include Rich Mix, BUoY Arts Centre Tokyo, 3:am magazine, The Poetry Café London, Poem Atlas, Stanley Picker Gallery, Litteraturtidsskriftet Lasso and Bøygen.
