Light Gets In is a collaborative art project, co-created with the input of residents near Mt. Fuji and in Japan.
Thinking through Mt. Fuji as a subject, this project is motivated by 3 questions:
1. How does a body function as a site of contradictions?
Amongst others, Mt. Fuji has been a symbol of power and beauty, prefectural and national exceptionalism, fire and water. It is a symbol of fear and favour, both for its potential for destruction – it remains an active volcano – and abundance – minerals and spring water continue to flow from the mountain, fuelling agricultural, cultural, and industrial activities today.
2. How are symbols re/de/constructed?
Early impressions of Mt. Fuji, as catalogued in Japan’s earliest poetic anthology Man’yōshū in the eighth-century, differ based on an individual’s social status, distance, and elevation to the mountain. The meaning ascribed to the mountain is, in part, a cultural creation depending on one’s vantage point.
3. What makes things "sacred"?
Even secular activities surrounding the mountain today promote its cleansing and awe-inducing properties. Meanwhile, in the present-day continued practice of descendants of Fujikō (Fuji-based religions), sacredness is retained in the veneration of several different sources: the founder of the religion, religious artefacts, or the mountain itself.
How are these questions also applicable to us, reified in the ways that we live, act, and believe?