Death in Winter

Artist’s Statement: Statistically, winter is the time of year that more deaths occur and both Mary Kathryn & Laura have recently experienced losses, as have many during the pandemic. A voracious reader, Mary came across a fascinating book, Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, by Yoel Hoffmann. Many of the poems were written in haiku and tanka forms. For their video, Laura and Mary wanted to use one image from nature with no editing where the camera was motionless for this piece in order to echo and honor this Zen feeling, challenging one another with such constraints. Laura then intuitively fit her original composition to the piece, punctuating it with chime sounds, suggested by the poem form as well.