“The world according to Shiro”
Shiro (literally “white” in Japanese) is the name of a cat that Yasuhiro Ogawa met in one small island called Hatoma-jima, a part of the Ryukyu Islands.
The picture presented for Neko Project is made of 9 photos.
The one in the center, Shiro’s picture, is the center of a kind of mandala, a spiritual and ritual geometric configuration of a map in Buddhism. The pictures around the picture of the cat are elements of nature related to Shiro’s daily life and its environment.
Yasuhiro Ogawa illustrates that way in a more vividly way the life of Shiro than in a classical format series. He also includes in one picture a metaphor of our universe at the same time of a relationship of a cat to its own surrounding.
Yasuhiro Ogawa explains us that the Ryukyu Islands are Japan’s southernmost region where the climate is subtropical. This region is believed to be home of local spirits and souls. Over there, the nature is an awe-inspiring. The sea, the flora and fauna, fire and water, earth and sky, and a cat…
« In the Ryukyu Islands all elements of nature are connected organically and I expect viewers see vivid and harmonious relation between them. »
© Yasuhiro Ogawa