The Path is a documentary based installation that explores causes and conditions leading to the artist’s personal experience of Zen culture within martial arts training and practice. Using a tree metaphor, the work investigates the roots of martial arts culture in Japan and the events which have enabled it to branch out to other cultures throughout the world.
Each branch inherits the causes and conditions of the previous. In this way the tree metaphor represents a metonymic device which guides the viewer through the installation experience. From root to trunk, to branch to twig, to bud, to blossom – each element acts as a temporal artifact representing both a personal story and a collective historical perspective.