ANNA RUSSELL • ARTIST

Zen Gardens - 2013

Travelling in Japan as part of my Masters program, I found it a land of strong contrasts. One of these was the sense of open space and meditative calm of a zen garden, juxtaposed with the tensions of an old culture, not least a militaristic Zen Buddhism.  Another was the sacred intermingling with the everyday. The World Heritage pilgrimage trails carry the marks of working paths for timber workers, the forests are plantation timber, a monoculture causing landslides scarring the slopes.  Australia’s old growth forests are woodchipped to preserve these forests.