KURITA Koichi


Kurita speaks of “the natural world as earth, water, fire and wind,” and states that the most material of these – the Earth itself, the earth, in other words the very soil, that also contains the human history occurring on the land – “gives us very clear indications that we are part of the natural world”.
In 1995, at a certain location on the Noto Peninsula in north-central Japan, Koichi Kurita was struck by the beauty of the soil. Since that time, Kurita has spent well over a decade journeying to towns and villages throughout Japan, usually sleeping in his pickup truck, and has collected a wide variety of soil samples. By gathering the soil of a given place, carefully breaking it down, drying it and sifting it repeatedly, he painstakingly brings out unique colorings from otherwise unremarkable soil.
Kurita’s own time taken in carrying out soil collection and painstaking manual work is itself sealed up, along with the time of the soil, within the transparent glass vessels. While the glass vessels in their orderly arrangement do bear resemblance to test-tube specimens, a richly intimate and unassuming quality resides in this work as well, and it is as if we are standing before a well-organized bookshelf, with the spines of books murmuring softly to us.

Soil Library
soil, glass vessels, corks
Glass vessels containing soil in its natural state,
with no artificial colorings of any kind.
2008 / w2'11" x h3" x d1"