"都会道祖神 - City deities"

2021

Straw, concrete, and scaffolding fabric

My interest in using straw derives from my research into Akita prefecture's Ningyo Dosojin. Ningyo dosojin are site-specific deities deriving from a mixture of Shintoism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Akita is unique in their representation of Ningyo Dosojin as usually they're represented as stone carvings depicting a man and woman embracing, but in Akita they're represented in various shapes and forms using straw and occasionally with other materials. The objective of this work is to imagine the future of deity worship in a world after capital industrialism.