UCL: Monuments for Dead Men

Commissioned for “Kissaten / Tea Room,” the first art exhibition at the University College London Japanese Garden, curated by Wen Xiao

I’ve spent my whole life watering

monuments for dead men.

What I know of my father is a slab of

carved stone, spring breaks, west Tokyo,

faded memories of funeral processions.

And here I am watering carved stone

again, for men generations down my

paternal lineage.

This monument to my ancestors,

who escaped to the West,

Christian values,

violins,

1865.

Who sailed back the seeds of

colonisation, rupturing centuries of

isolation on Japanese soil.

This monument marks the name of my

blood, Hisanari Machida, who watched

your people build altars to cultural

heritage, to nation states and colonial

spoils, who founded the first national

museum in Japan.

A taxonomy of time, of collection, of

power, the worship of eternal life that

structures your world. I suppose we all

had to learn to speak your tongue.

But he preserved the sound of

our motherland. Ancient Japanese

instruments, soft wood in vitrines.

Can you hear the music?

And what do we choose to remember?

Listen.

Can you hear the mothers crying as they

ship their sons to sea, waves crashing,

winds howling toward alien choirs?

Shortly after founding his museum,

Machida left everything behind to

become a monk. Meditating in silence he

collected nothing, became nothing.

Maybe then, could he hear the music?

When museums and monuments sink to

decay, we are left with nothing but now.

In flesh, blood, and stone

I water you

to a different world.