2011年6月11日

In an Optative Mood


Yellow Night- Aihara.jpg


     Not long ago our colleague Nobuhiro Aihara died suddenly. He was in Bali on a short visit and his passing came as a shock to his family and all of us at Studio Y3.

     Now almost two months later, I am remembering the moment when I learned of his death and the feelings that this news stirred in me. To say that I was speechless when I heard the news is inaccurate. As I stood silent in the room and filling with emotion, there was much that I wanted to say. I did not know Aihara-san very well. I had only one long conversation with him while I interviewed him for a project in the Netherlands two years ago, and this was hardly a personal contact.

     So what was the loss that I was feeling? Often, when we learn of the death of a friend, we scour our private inventory for times we have spent together, recall fondly conversations we have shared and events that are part of a common past. Such losses are powerful experiences because they speak to our identity, to a person in whose company we became more ourselves and memorable. In the death of a friend, a partner to our past disappears and, with that, some verification of our life also vanishes. In these moments, the past is less certain because a person with whom we shared it is gone.

      The future is just as vulnerable and this was the loss for those of us who did not know Aihara-san well. We lost the opportunity to know a man who was warm, gentle and "of infinite jest". That day I stood thinking, "if only there had been more time". This playfulness overflows from his work. In testament to this, I include a segment from his animation, Yellow

Night".


http://vimeo.com/24947036

Paul Venet 01Y3日記
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