Buddhist artworks of the past and present face each other across a corridor. On plinths sit three serene Buddhas spanning a period of more than 1000 years, fashioned from wood, stone and bronze in Japan, Indonesia and Thailand. Turn to the facing wall and you confront a work that does not look obviously ‘Buddhist’ at all, being made, not from stone, carved wood or gilded bronze, but rather 300 electronic counters.
Yet Miyajima Tatsuo, who made this electronic artwork, is also a Buddhist artist, and his work Region no 126701–127000 is a spectacular meditation on Buddhist ideas of impermanence and time. Repeating the numbers one to 99 in different combinations and rhythms, his installation evokes a continuous cycle of death and rebirth.
Zero, which would indicate an end, is nowhere to be seen. Miyajima has said that he thinks of each number as an individual human life. Setting forth these numbers in a flickering field, he invites each of us to contemplate our place in a universe where everything is connected and ever-changing.
