Ryo SHIMIZU |
Featured works

The Izu Peninsula demonstrates geological activity that is among the most complex in the Japanese archipelago, itself at one of the world's most active zones of diastrophism. Unlike the two tectonic platess that broadly divide Japan into southwestern and the northeastern parts, the Philippine Sea Plate on which the Izu Peninsula rests moves slowly to the north while subducting.

The Kawagodaira eruption that occurred 3,200 years ago marked one of the largest volcanic eruptions to ever occur on the Izu Peninsula. With a unique appearance formed by the pyroclastic flows, the terrain was hammered by torrential rain during Typhoon Ida in 1958, causing outflow of large volumes of earth and sand along with flooding of the Kano River. This catastrophic disaster was responsible for over a thousand deaths in the Izu region alone. The source of the Shiraiwa Onsen hot springs, a tourism resource in the town of Nakaizu, was also washed away and devastated in the Kano River flooding. The Shiraiwa Onsen springs were drilled and reopened in a reconstruction project, which helped attract the siting of the Nakaizu Spa Hospital.

The artist (Shimizu) learns that his father once work at the hospital, and, feeling the hands of fate in motion, travels about Izu.
The artist's own experiences with typhoons, his attitude toward nature through architecture (designing), the personal history told in his voice with insights concerning seeing, and the story of the geology of the Izu Peninsula (the traces of Izu's topographical formation from the era of submarine volcanoes to the collision with the Honshu main island, and from the era of large-scale onshore volcanoes to the Kawagodaira eruption) told in the voice of a woman (in English) gradually overlap to lay down strata.