Kyoto Journal 103: Creativity (Digital)

KJ103: Creativity explores aspects of a topic too vast to fully envisage or encapsulate in just 180 pages. From the first braiding of thread to the associative symbology of Chinese characters, to the melding of oral sutras into Pali/Sanskrit text, and their subsequent translation, the development of folk-tales, to present-day short story and haiku, we bring together the strivings of poets, musicians, visual and sculptural artists, photographers, art event curators, meditators and philosophers, even a part-time futurologist, to evolve new ideas and invent new forms.

Master calligrapher-painter Park Dae Sung seeks the essence of “Koreanness”; sculptor Mariyo Yagi spirals deep into contextualizing her huge nawa rice-straw installations; Kyoto silk artist Izukura Akihiko amazes with innovatory productions; lacquer artist Mio Heki discusses kintsugi, the restorative repair of broken ceramics; Hokkaido photographer Urashima Hisashi engages in a decades-long conversation with a single elm tree; essayist Leanne Ogasawara muses on the importance of playfulness; KJ designer Hirisha Mehta creates a Japanese kanji font for the Heart Sutra that simultaneously reads as Devanagari Pali script; art historian Ilaria Peretti introduces artist Tanaka Atsuko of Japan’s 1970s avant-garde Gutai movement; jazz saxophonist Mari Nakano examines the philosophy of the human condition through music; Marlies Peeters reflects on the innovative recent Indonesian collective-curated documenta art event in Kassel; media pioneer Kevin Kelly conjures AI artistry; painter Daijiro Hama invokes Covid-era mutants; tea-master Bruce Hamana charts a resurgence in Japanese popular arts; Poornima Sukuwar introduces the Chennai-based Arvani Art Project; Zen priest Munakata Sokan, an avid surfer, restores a temple, introducing online zazen and meditation retreats; Kyoto poet/songwriter Phil Norton finds inspiration in his horse-headed deity neighbor; lyricist Chris Mosdell and photographer Ryo Ohwada envisage Japan behind the mask; translator Madhav Ajjampur retells a Kannada folktale from Karnataka, India; prolific scholar/translator Thomas Cleary is lauded for his superb rendition of the Flower Ornament Scriptures including the boy pilgrim Sudhana’s enlightenment quest; poet Changmin Yuan reveals the creative power of Chinese ideograms; Patrick Dowd celebrates the rebel poet Sixth Dalai Lama; short-story writer (and high school student) Sulakshana Guha weaves an imaginative narrative around ‘The Box Across the Ages’; poet Tishani Doshi riffs on Darwinism; and Robert Brady (assisted by his grand-daughter Kaya) explores creativity as habitat of spirit.

With, as usual, an eclectic assemblage of reviews. All this in one super-easy to download PDF that we’re delighted to be able to share with readers/friends of KJ…