Shadow Haiku
“We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates…Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”
—Jun’ichirŌ Tanizaki
I believe our shadow selves play an intrinsic role in our growth and development—that our substance and depth, our largeness and potential, lies in the unexplored parts of ourselves that we are hesitant to engage. Just as our shadow is tethered to us, so is our potential, constantly ebbing and flowing the way our shadow rotates around us in the cycles of light and dark.
Akin to their literary counterpart of three line stanzas that emphasize simplicity, intensity and directness of expression, Shadow Haiku are composed of two objects and their combined shadow. They poetically distill the cyclical dualities of light and dark, potential and growth, life and death. They are a moment of clarity intended to blossom in the mind of the viewer.
