FCCJ Main Bar & Sushi Bar
June 29-August 2, 2008
Tom Kuczyński

What does it mean to truly understand things and events? Surely it is to see their characteristics, interrelations and unity: the world beyond duality.

The Buddhist concept of rijimuge shows that the worlds of universals and particulars are not mutually exclusive. Even though temperature (a universal) and water (a particular) are so different, we know they go together beautifully. We might strive to live in both worlds, universal (spiritual) and particular (material), but in today’s society rarely are the two seen as compatible.

Yet, according to some Eastern schools of thought, the ultimate level in the understanding of interrelations is another concept known in Japan as jijimuge. In India jijimuge is symbolized by Indra’s net -- a spider’s web where every drop of dew contains in it the reflections of other drops of dew containing the reflection of itself.

Things and events cannot exist without everything else. The whole universe depends on a single blade of grass, the existence of which embodies this very universe. No supreme authority is necessary in this self-sustainable and self-regulatory democracy. Every being is a King and a Hero.

Creating a mosaic of photos, Tom Kuczyński plays with light, shape and color, as well as with the cultural, historical, political, environmental, religious and ontological contexts of his images. This exhibition is an attempt to visualize the concept of jijimuge.

Tom Kuczyński was born in 1977 in Poland and has lived in Japan for over six years. In 2006 he obtained PhD in finance at Hiroshima Shudo University and joined the Embassy of Poland in Tokyo. His photos have been published in GRAPHIA magazine and his multimedia presentations shown to audiences at movie theatres and universities in Cracow, Helsinki, London and Hiroshima. In 2007 he was awarded the Special Committee Prize to mark the tenth anniversary of the "Japan through Diplomats' Eyes" photo contest.

The Exhibition Committee