Flowers bloom so proudly and scatter away in the wink of an eye.
They change their colors in perfect harmony with Mother Nature's rhythm, so naturally as birds sing and the moon waxes and wanes.
People search for hopes even in the face of despair. It was believed by those who used to feel joys when flowers bloom and sorrows when they scatter that flowers would assuage calamities like seasonal plagues.
Doing flowers is my daily life.
I interact with others while being saved by plants and learning vastly from the Mother Nature.
Enjoying the beauties of nature and amenably accepting natural phenomena greatly pleases me.
I believe there was a natural balance between nature and humans when people believed in flowers' psychic powers and held rituals to rejoice at flowers' blooming and tremble with fear of their scatters.
Now, modern societies capable of controlling hunger and global temperatures are suffering pandemics.
Once people's ordinary life is challenged, our once controlled emotions will no longer be repressible.
Things start striking our placidity and drive us to question what used to seem normal.
What exactly is the future that we really hope for?
We may be reaching the point to relook and reanalyze values of farming and religious faith, which form a foundation of Japanese spiritual culture, and such activities as education, entertainment and arts which are built upon this foundation.
I pray the pandemic will come to its end as quickly as possible.
Shuho Hananofu
京都の慈照寺(銀閣寺)にて初代花方を務める。同寺の国際文化交流事業ではフランスや香港、アメリカ、メキシコ、台湾などでの文化交流プログラムでさまざまな国や民間の文化施設、団体などと交流。音楽や現代アート、工芸、建築などの分野の国内外のクリエーターとも協働。国内外の音楽フェスティバルや展覧会などのイベントにも参加。
2015年に独立し、草木に仕える花士(はなのふ)として、大自然や神仏、時、ひと、場所に花を献ずるなど「花をする」ことを国内外で続ける。同年、青蓮舎花朋の會を設立し京都、九州、東京の教場で、花を通して、豊かな生活時間を作ることを提案している。
2016年から、香港に加え中国本土でも活動し、外務省が日本文化を海外で発信する事業「JAPAN HOUSE」にも関わる。
2017-2020年 京都造形芸術大学(現、京都芸術大学)美術工芸学科 客員教授
現在、京都府立大学 文学部 非常勤講師
著書に『造化自然 -銀閣慈照寺の花-』(淡交社)、『一本草 -花が教える生きる力- 』(徳間書店)がある。
https://www.kakiden.com/introduction.html
info@hananofu.jp 青蓮舎事務局までご連絡くださいませ。