Awareness of Between-ness: Street tree like Bonsai
Creating artworks for Miho Watanabe is always ‘awareness of between-ness’, which is to create invisible subject ‘between-ness’ visible. She has been living in Sydney for nearly half of her life, and she was always appreciated to see street trees in Sydney, which lead her to visualise this appreciation in this project. The street tree project is an ongoing project, and her experimentation gradually developed to see the street trees like bonsai. Her Japanese heritage sees the bonsai aesthetic in the beauty of street trees. The background and atmosphere started to fade in her brain, and the street trees became centre stage in its world similar to bonsai’s small world, which leads to explore the aesthetic and relationship in between bonsai and street trees. Her practice of visualising ‘between-ness’ involves becoming aware of the aesthetic in nature: a street tree in a city for this project. Seeing those trees like a bonsai started to think how nature’s strength is way greater power than a human input. And finding ‘between-ness’ in between a street tree and myself using the lens of bonsai aesthetic and knowledge to articulate it, which will tap into awareness of nature in a city.
