Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
Artist Matthew Rosier discusses his new film Wood Rots Like We Do, which tells the story of the ancient shrines of the Ise Jingu, Japan, and what they can teach us about regenerating forests today.
“We need a culture that sustains nature and we need a nature that sustains culture.”
This, Japanese environmental activist Isao Sakai believes, is the wisdom embedded within the shrines of the Ise Jingu. These shrines, comprising 125 structures, are entirely rebuilt of hinoki cypress wood every 20 years. In a ritual called Shikinen Sengu.
Two thirds of the wood from the previous shrines is recycled within the Ise Jingu and in shrines across Japan, and one third is unsalvageable, and is burnt.
A vacant shrine plot; the shrines move from one site to an adjacent site every 20 years. Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
Historically, this wood was sourced from the Ise Jingu’s own “sacred forests”. In Japan’s indigenous faith, Shinto, this sacred “Chinju” forest is at the centre of worship. Some say this is where the Shinto shrine originated, from gatherings within forest clearings, around trees.
Ise’s forests and shrines were in a form of productive harmony; each sustaining the other through the generations.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
However after a period of uncontrolled felling in the 19th Century, with vast numbers of pilgrims chopping trees for firewood, Ise’s cypress stocks fell too low to sustain the rebuilding. A process requiring 13,000 mature trees every 20 years. So a plan was made. The ‘200 Year Plan’ is a mass afforestation plan, precisely calculated by the Ise Jingu’s foresters (who are also priests).
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
The foresters of Ise have estimated that they need 3,000ha of cypress forest to indefinitely regrow the shrines every 20 years. They are currently at 2,500ha, and expect to be self-sufficient again within the next 100 years. This is in addition to the larger mixed broadleaf forests, essential for preserving biodiversity, water quality and ensuring disaster resilience.
It’s this disaster resilience that some hypothesise is why the forest became so sacred in Japan thousands of years ago: essential for societal protection. The same realisation that is now dawning upon our species as a whole.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
Learning of the scale of this forest regeneration, catalised by the rebuilding of 125 shrines, was a revelation for me.
In Japan, this give and take relationship with forests is natural. They even have a name for it: “satoyama”. Translated as “human mountain”. As “mountain” and “forest” are historically indistinguishable in Japan, this can also be translated as human forest. Satoyama is the interaction between society and mountains; the productive give and take which ensures their mutual preservation.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
Britain once had its own forms of “satoyama”. Epping Forest’s pollarded oak, beech and hornbeam, which fuelled London’s expansion. Heating homes and feeding its bread ovens. This pollarding was carried out by commoners, who had rights to lop trees on periodic rotation. Cutting back branches every 20 years or so, and then letting them regrow. Sustaining the forest, and its unique ecosystem, over generations.
Recording music with Laura Misch and NYX amongst Epping’s ancient pollards as part of a previous project City of Trees, 2021. (Image: Greg White)
Once we no longer needed our trees for fuel or ships, and as enclosures crept in, woodland was increasingly sold off for development and agriculture. Epping was saved only by mass public protest, and its subsequent purchase by the City of London, as a leisure forest for Londoners. We then set upon “conserving” what was left.
Epping’s top heavy ancient pollards, collapsing in slow motion, hold a lesson in this regard. As do other areas of Epping which have been successfully brought back into the pollarding cycle. Light breathing life into the forest floor once again. Teaching us that this “give and take” between people trees is an essential part of a shared ecosystem, of which we are part.
City of Trees, 2021, memorialised the role these ancient pollards played in London’s development. (Image: Ben Broomfield)
This is why I wanted to make my film. To tell this story of how culture, here in the form of architecture and ritual, can sustain forests over millennia and into the future. A form of “communication that transcends the ages” (Kenichi Suzuki, Mayor of Ise).
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
In the film, priests, foresters, carpenters, artists, activists, politicians and architects tell the story not only of the Ise Jingu, but also of what went wrong in Japan’s forestry traditions. How Japan’s mountains were left “bald” after World War Two. How in their rush to reforest the nation, back to nearly 70% forest cover today, they became reliant and subsequently addicted to imported timber.
Counterintuitively, Japan is now the fourth largest importer of timber in the world. The UK is second, with just 13% forest cover – many times less than that of Japan.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
Once Japan’s largely mono-cultural forests were ready for felling, it was too late. Home grown timber could no longer compete with the price of the timber imported from South East Asia, where Japanese firms have been responsible for mass deforestation of ancient forests. A situation which persists today.
Many of Japan’s forests are now unmanaged. Meaning they are less able to perform their historic role of disaster prevention and water preservation. Much of this forest planted after World War Two is of only a handful of conifer species, earmarked for use as future construction materials. Now priced out of their own domestic market; a situation exacerbated by the costs of felling trees on steep mountainsides.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
I met various organisations trying to address this “forestry crisis”.
Yamatowa Forestry in Nagano Prefecture is trying to bring local pine forests back into productive use. These trees have grown curvy, making them too difficult to process for large forestry companies. In their factory, made of pine, they use every part of the tree. Slicing it into wafer thin paper called Kyogi, making furniture, and using whatever is left to fuel the building.
Yamatowa Forestry’s factory. Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
On the outskirts of Tokyo, community afforestation organisation Silva are building upon the legacy of legendary Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. They are focussing on soil health, restoring the land so that it better supports the planting of ultra dense Miyawaki style forests, with three to eight trees planted per square metre, in order to accelerate forest regeneration.
Miyawaki’s method was born out of his observations of Shinto’s Chinju forests, which had been preserved over millenia because of their spiritual significance. He found these were the only pockets of indigenous forest left in Japan by the 1970s. Silva believes that community planting and management is how they can put a “soul” back into Japanese forests.
Planting a Miyawaki forest on the outskirts of Tokyo. Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
The shrines of the Ise Jingu, and their symbiotic relationship with surrounding forests, demonstrate the power of both of these approaches. The power of design and craft to metabolise forestry. And most importantly, the importance of our relationship to the forest in preserving them over the very long term, sustained through culture and community.
Still from Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
As Ise based artist Takeshi Nakatani put it to me when I first visited Ise in 2019:
“Wood ages and rots just like we do, and just as with the shrines which we rebuild every 20 years, it’s through this constant process of renewal that something lasts forever.”
Wood Rots Like We Do, 2023 (Image: Matthew Rosier)
As the UK embarks on its own relatively modest afforestation plan, from 13% to 16.5% by 2050, Japan holds many lessons. I hope that the story of the Ise Jingu’s renewal can offer inspiration, and even a model, in this journey towards a culture that can catalyse and sustain the regeneration of our forests.
The full Wood Rots Like We Do film collection can be viewed here. The film was commissioned by Ise City, with support from the British Council, DAIWA Foundation and Arts Council England. Further information on the project can be found here.
matthewrosier.com
Instagram: @mfprosier
Author: Matthew Rosier
Last updated: 06/11/23
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