What does nature mean to man? What type of relationship do we have with nature? It was questions such as these that drove the Japanese artist Hideaki Idetsuki to develop the project “Connect with the Forest”, in which he reflects on the way that different cultures view nature.
The idea for the project came to him between 2000 and 2001 while in residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, in Southern Germany, near the Black Forest. Hideaki Idetsuki installs huge objects; rings or rectangles, in the branches of trees in forests around the world, but particularly in planted forests, such as those found in Europe and Japan.
These objects are installed at a point in the forest that makes it possible for people to see them from a distance, but high enough, however, that they cannot be touched when people get closer. Consequently, these objects remain in nature, at the mercy of time, but immune to human interference. Someday in the distant future, the work will entirely disappear, as is the ultimate fate of everything that exists.
Hideaki Idetsuki’s main objective in “Connect with the Forest” is to encourage the viewer to be sensitive to the passage of time, as well as to establish an appropriate distance between man and nature. The artist draws attention to the fact that man belongs to the nature, whose time is continuous, but not eternal.
The works presented in Galeria Leme’s project room are the results of diverse projects and documents that arose from the “Connect with the Forest” installations.