Changing Sadness and Despair into Hope and Love Turning Hopes for Shuri Castle’s Reconstruction into Art
Manabu Kochi’s piece, Kanashimi to zetsubou wo kibou to ai ni kaeru tamashii no chikara (Changing Sadness and Despair into Hope and Love: The Power of the Spirit). The subject of the painting is the Shuri Castle fire.
February 12, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo
By Kazuki Furugen
Manabu Kochi is an artist from Naha who lives in France.
Recently, he completed a painting imbued with the grief he feels at the loss of Shuri Castle, which burned down in late October of last year, and his hopes for its reconstruction.
The piece is entitled Kanashimi to zetsubou wo kibou to ai ni kaeru tamashii no chikara (Changing Sadness and Despair into Hope and Love: The Power of the Spirit).
He is still considering when and where to exhibit the piece. After the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in April of last year, Kochi made Hakai kara yomigaeru kibou to ai (Hope and Love Rising from Destruction), depicting the fire.
The piece was exhibited at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) in Paris and viewable on the same gallery’s website.
Through his paintbrush, Kochi express his deep sorrow for the two pieces of cultural heritage, both destroyed by fires, and his wishes for their restoration.
Kochi was in his home on the outskirts of Paris at the time of the Notre Dame fire.
Manabu Kochi
Watching the news of the fire on television, he “fell into a deep sadness, as though a part of Paris had been lost.”
The fire at Shuri Castle was during Kochi’s solo exhibition in Okinawa. He recalls an “overwhelming sense of misfortune, like a significant loss of something important to Okinawa.”
He started conceptualizing the Notre Dame painting last summer and the Shuri Castle painting a few days after the fire. He finished both pieces in December 2019.
Kochi describes Shuri Castle and Notre Dame as “mankind’s cultural heritage.”
Notre Dame is “a symbol of the history of Parisians. It is their identity…a symbol of love and the freedom to accept all people.”
In his art, Kochi expresses his hope that Notre Dame will rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
Regarding Shuri Castle, Kochi says, “It is Okinawa’s history and culture. It also holds the sadness and anger of the Ryukyu people tragically destroyed in the war.”
Kochi adds, “The Okinawan way of life is kind and powerful: peace and love for all people.
I can only hope that Shuri Castle becomes a place where you can feel the liberty and the open community of all the people that come here from all over the world.”
(English translation by T&CT and Ellen Huntley)
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