Tanka Films

One morning, after returning to live in New Zealand in 2004, I walked into the bathroom and found a moth clinging to the handle of my razor. The verse below formed at that moment, and as I had recently bought a digital camcorder in the United States, I filmed the moth as well.

the rain is continuous,
as a moth is sleeping
on the stem of my razor
I decide
to remain unshaved

This would become the first of 26 Tanka Films, tanka being an unrhymed Japanese verse form of five lines. Although I began with five shots to correspond with the five line form of tanka, it soon became unnecessary to adhere to a five-shot sequence; sometimes the filmed images were so strong that only three shots were needed.
Over the two years of filming, a natural thematic development occurred. I started with everyday images from my home and neighbourhood, and then extended the terrain to include a wide range of subject matter. Ecological concerns began to appear, and the cycle ends with a global perspective in the final Tanka Film:

there’s a window to the future
a window for dreaming
your rocket ship is ready,
but it’s the earth – the sight of the earth
that always draws you back