tengoku or hirakata park!?

The Only Way is Through

On World Ocean Day.

“What we enjoyed most on Awashima Island was the chance to spend time along the shore and discover the ocean. We learnt to dive there, and were amazed by the strange and beautiful creatures we encountered. Most of them we had never seen before. But even here, so far from home, we recognized some of the creatures. This was both surprising and comforting, and it got us thinking—aren’t all living things related in some way? It’s water that connects marine life in Awashima to the freshwater life in Ganjad. Around the world we use different languages and give different names to seas and oceans, but they’re all related. Most rivers flow into the sea, and common currents connect nature and people to each other.” – from The deep, for the text Arun Wolf and Gita Wolf from an oral narrative by Mayur Vayeda and Tushar Vayeda.)

The Vayeda brothers tell their journey from an indigenous Warli community in Maharashtra, western India, growing up in the village of Ganja, to a small Japanese island called Awashima. They connect the village stream they knew from their childhood to the deep oceans they encountered in Awashima.

“There were voices in the wind and hands in the obscurity. . . .”

Virgil Finlay (1914–1971), illustration to “Three Against the Stars” by Eric North