Artist Statement

This work is a visual haiku. In pre-modern Japan, painting and writing weren’t seen as two separate things, but rather the same act. Thus, poems very often ended up on top of some kind of painting, merging the two works into one. In this work, I have decided to do the same with photography. In doing so, it is no longer a haiku and a photograph; it is a single work in which the words and the photo seem to be in discussion with one another. As a Japan-studies student, I have also decided to compose my haiku in Japanese, for I feel that there is no English haiku form that can correctly convey the poetic nature of the Japanese haiku. In traditional Japanese haiku, each work must include both a kigo (or seasonal word) and kireji (or cutting word). For my kigo, I have chosen the winter word “samusa,” or coldness. For my kireji, I used the word “kana,” which emphasizes the preceding phrase and adds a sense of wonder. These two words together I have chosen to translate as “The bitter cold,” which is certainly what I was feeling when I took the photograph.