Nostalgia for the moon and the sea

I will depict future extinction through longing, starting from the ocean where life began 4 billion years ago. This work is a rebirth that weaves together the longing for death and life alongside the act of combing for peace.

The moon and the sea are also the source where all life began. The moon greatly influences Earth's climate, and its gravitational pull causes the tides in the oceans, creating ecosystems where life can thrive and driving evolution. The sea remains the source of life on Earth to this day, constantly interacting with the moon to create an environment where life can flourish vigorously and stably.

Four billion years ago, within the oceans, myriad chemical reactions began to create life. Through death, evolution, and extinction, the current Earth ecosystem was formed. Homo sapiens live in an unstable era where extinction is perhaps once again possible. I ponder deeply that death, which humans fear, is also, viewed from afar, making room for new life.

The sea connects everywhere, yet it also becomes a boundary that separates all. Gazing at the ceaseless vitality encountered in the sea, I realize that countless transformations of death and birth allowed my own existence to reach this point. We observe this universe, slowly, over an incredibly long time.

Humans lean on each other, feel compassion, love, hate, fight, kill, and struggle to save one another. As the twilight darkness lifts, pale faces flush red with the rising sun. Today, I think of those enduring sorrow and pain, caring for each other, living lives to love other faces.

From the sea, I gather fragments of sorrow. They are the stars and dust of human greed and ignorance. The sea hides a brilliant secret: it breathes beauty even into these fragments of sorrow. The sad fragments of human dust are swallowed by the sea, by nature. We take these dust fragments and weave stories, hoping for a beautiful rebirth after death. After wandering the sea for ages searching for dust, what I finally discover are your faces.

I remember those faces and gather human dust. When I gain the courage to face sorrow, only then can I gather the faintly scattered stars of hope in the pitch-black darkness.

We are searching for ways to avoid falling while holding onto everything. But isn't what we should be seeking instead the art of falling well? We must invent what is needed for a more elegant fall, a joyful and delightful fall, and invent countless diverse parachutes. For what we truly love is the very joy of living here on Earth. —Aiton Krenak