The Red-Crowned Crane & The End of the World

“The Red Crowned-Crane & The End of the World” is both an artists’ book and a mini-exhibition. The leporello, half-bound in linen, shows abstract photographs of cranes inspired by Japanese screen painting. These are juxtaposed with a series of dramatically rising clouds of steam from a volcano at the “end of the world”: A symbol of the power of nature as the beginning and end of all life. Inserted in the book is another fanfold on which poems by Kashiwagi Mari are printed in Japanese and English.

“The end of the world” - this is what the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, call the volcanic region in the north of Japan. The area is also home to the Manchurian crane, which was once widespread and has been a symbol of happiness, long life and loyalty in Asia for thousands of years. In the 1920s, humans brought the Manchurian crane to the brink of extinction. The rescue of the Manchurian crane is as legendary in Japan as the bird itself: During a particularly harsh winter in 1952, a farmer saved one of the last flocks from starvation by spreading grain in a field where the cranes had sought refuge. Humans are destroying nature, but at the same time the dedicated actions of one individual can save a species and perhaps even an entire ecosystem.

“The Red-Crowned Crane & The End of the World” by Peter Granser was created in Hokkaido in 2020

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