save the Blue Tier
♫ blue tier suikinkutsu ♫
10 November, 2005
At the request of ECHO members, Mr Kubo 'Nobu' Yoshinobu, master suikinkutsu builder, flew down from Kyoto, Japan to install a water harp on ECHO land on the Blue Tier.
Here he is seen checking the sound before surrounding the pot with rocks.
'Suikinkutsu' was an almost forgotten Japanese art form of sinking an inverted earthernware pot into the ground and having drops of water fall onto a permanent layer of water at the base, creating a pleasant musical effect.
As far as we are aware this is almost certainly the first to be installed in Tasmania.
The first day was spent testing the two pots donated by Hobart ceramicist Zsolt Faludi for sound effect - the larger pot provided better resonance. Thanks to the volunteers present we had dug the hole, poured the concrete base and embedded the pot into the base by evening.
The following people were present to help during construction
stages:
Lorraine Biggs, Steve Cameron, Ben Dean, Zsolt Faludi, Tony Goodfellow, Beris
Hansberry, Hideki Okubo, Kaye Jones, Kumi Kato, Dave Ransley, Rob Wall and
Des Wingfield.
Lila Meleisea and Lorraine Biggs were supported by Tasmanian Regional Arts with a SOAR Fund for the Kodama Project for their sound and visual collaboration to accompany the Suikinkutsu.
D. Wingfield has provided a 50 second recording of the suikinkutsu, available as mp3 or Ogg Vorbis file formats at 410KB.
[click on images for larger versions]
 Rob Wall breaks ground for the installation. |
 Rob mixing concrete, with ample encouragement from Hide, Kumi Kato and Tony Goodfellow |
 Photo time before the pot is lowered into the ground |
 Nobu lowering the pot onto the newly poured concrete base |
 Levels are checked and fine adustments made before concrete sets. |
 Zsolt Faludi, ceramicist from Hobart who donated the large pots to ECHO. |
[For those interested in suikinkutsu construction we refer you to Wikipedia.]
