Final Project: Recontextualizing Haiku

This project quickly became very exciting for me. At first, I was nervous at the idea of crafting six individual pieces out of a single haiku, but finding Natsume Sōseki's verse below clarified many things almost instantly:

Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow.

This haiku spoke many things to me: firstly, the image of pristine snow, and then of course the juxtaposition of the raging winds and the ferocity of nature--yet even so, the haiku comes to a peaceful, almost forlorn conclusion. To me, this haiku speaks of the pain one can inflict first upon oneself when chasing anger or vindictiveness above all else. It speaks to the fear lurking in nature, as well, and its brutality. I strove to encapsulate all of these emotions and visions into at least one image each, and found myself experimenting with various mediums and producing work that surprised me.