When the collage project was first introduced, I knew I wanted to make something related to Japan. Then I remembered something I saw in Brooklyn Botanic Garden and also from many anime that I saw – a torii. A torii is a traditional Japanese gate to shrines, most commonly found at the entrance to a Shinto shrine. Hence, it is the mark of the entrance to a sacred place and holds a special place in Japanese culture.
I thought it would be fascinating to make a torii out of the many Japanese stores, places, events, flowers, and items that are in New York. Together, it would be a sort of “entrance” to Japan-in-America type of cultural encounter; and the torii would be the perfect symbol to link everything in New York together back to its origin in Japan.
Since I have already been to a few Japan cultural events and stores, I have a lot of resources and references to work with, and I will collect more by visiting shops that I have never been to before, such as Kinokuniya (a Japanese bookstore).
For this project, I will be using prezi as advised by Ben so that I can learn more about photo editing and have fun with it. The other unfortunate reason would be that I don’t have color ink to print out the photographs and mess with them.
