Abstract:
The role of a garden is to connect people with nature. Trees live for hundreds of years, stones for tens and hundreds of thousands of years, and the earth for billions of years, and these different generations meet in the garden. People who live for a few decades yearn for nature and often seek gardens. (Sometimes people seek gardens as way to control nature). Some gardens follow the workings of nature, while others are the exact opposite. The form of a garden is not the most significant; it is a place where you can feel nature’s way. A garden used to be a part of daily life: 家 (House) + 庭 (Garden) = 家庭 (Home), rather than an extraordinary place to visit at shrines and temples. Today, there are many green belts, but the number of thoughtfully created gardens has decreased. In the garden, people's thoughts and feelings are exchanged across generations. Creating a garden is therefore a collaborative effort with our ancestors across generations, and a task to be passed on to future generations.
Bio:
OGAWA Katsuaki
Ueji family, 12th generation
OGAWA Katsuaki was born in 1973. He trained under OGAWA Jihei XI from the time he entered high school. The family business began about 260 years ago when the first generation of the family, who was a samurai warrior, decided to pursue the path of gardening instead. Each subsequent generation has taken the name Ogawa Jihei, whose style has been especially influenced by the seventh generation, who created the Heian Jingu Shrine garden in Kyoto, among others, in a way respecting the surrounding natural scenery. OGAWA Katsuaki spent much of his childhood in these gardens, and trained under OGAWA Jihei XI from the time he entered high school. After graduating from the College of Law at Ritsumeikan University, he devoted himself to creating gardens, and is exploring new possibilities for gardens, including gardening with the participation of citizens, in addition to the creation of traditional gardens.