Mr Ito, 25, started building his ‘Castle on the Ocean’ when he became bored during his university entrance exams. Using just a knife and glue, the art student built up an entire cityscape over four years by cutting and folding hundreds of pages of craft paper…But incredibly, Wataru, a second year student at Tokyo University of the Arts, plans to set his work on fire when the show is over. He said: “I’m very happy to display my work at a place where people who don’t have an interest in arts can come and see it…”When the exhibition is over I will burn the castle. I thought I could see it rising up from the ashes if I took a video and played it backwards.”
Article & photos at Telegraph.co.uk.
I like how he insists that he just did it because he was bored; he’s not getting his self wrapped up in this piece, he’s just enjoying the process for its own sake. And the idea of destroying something you’ve worked so hard on (and that came out beautifully) is baffling/amazing, but it’s probably my favorite part – since he is thinking of filming it, he will be creating one piece by destroying another. Coming from a journaling persepctive I sometimes feel like omgzzz everything must be preserved and remembered forever – but sometimes getting rid of old things, habits, ideas etc can bring in all sorts of new things you never thought you’d come up with. In this particular case, the film can ONLY be made by destroying the city, there isn’t really any other way to do it (other than making a stunt city, which is silly). Destruction as an act of creation. That being said, I don’t think I will be destroying any of my things any time soon! I am still too attached.
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