Thinking Reed / Unthinking Reed

2021　4K video　3:46min.

Inspired by the famous sentence from the philosopher Pascal's Pensées, a collection of his fragmentary thoughts published after his death: “Man is only a reed, (…) but he is a thinking reed.” This indicates that a human is as weak as a reed in the midst of great nature, and yet their dignity lies in their thinking. But on the other hand, Pascal also wrote how foolish those thoughts are, and does not only write about thinking in a positive way.
It is true that there are many things in history and in everyday life where the result of our thinking seemed to be not necessarily good.
This is a work in which the viewers look at 2 swaying reeds and think about thinking and unthinking.

–Chikako Shakudo (Curator of Kurobe City Museum of Art, Toyama)

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2021 Kurobe City Museum of Art, Toyama, Japan