Hardcover
Senbazuru - François Laxalt
Publisher: Les éditions Empreintes&Digitales
Dimensions: 276x247 mm
Pages: 80
ISBN: 978-2-9559358
Dimensions: 276x247 mm
Pages: 80
ISBN: 978-2-9559358
€ 33.02
Senbazuru, an art book inspired by Zen and Japanese Calligraphy whose pictures lead to a form of poetic mediation. This photographic project is insipired by the life ofSadako Sasaki and her fight against leukemia with only one weapon : a Senbazuru.
"I will write peace on your wings and you will fly across the world to carry this message”.
When Sadako Sasaki wrote these lines in her diary in May, 1955, she was dying of leukemia in a Hiroshima hospital. In a race against time, she focused all of her energy on one thing only: completing her Senbazuru.
In Japan, the crane is a symbol of peace and longevity. A Senbazuru is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes lined on a string. According to the ancient Japanese legend, anyone who completes a Senbazuru will be granted a wish by the gods.
Sadako Sasaki was not so lucky. She was two years old when she was irradiated during the bombing of Hiroshima, but her leukemia would not appear until she reached the age of eleven when she was a young girl full of life.
During her stay in hospital the disease began to advance rapidly. When she heard about the legend of Senbazuru, without hesitation she knew what she must do. She decided in that moment to make a thousand paper cranes - her Senbazuru - and ask the gods for her cure.
Filled with energy and fervent hope, she began folding her origami cranes, but quickly ran out of paper. So, she improvised and turned to anything she could find; her school notebooks, scraps of paper she liberated from other patients’ rooms, gift wrapping, labels from medicine bottles…
Unfortunately, Sadako died only after she had completed her 644th crane.
In her diary this sentence : "I will write peace on your wings and you will fly across the world to carry this message”.
Moved by this crushing loss, in a gesture of solidarity Sadako’s classmates would finish the Senbazuru she could not complete herself so that she may be buried with all one thousand. Since then, Sadako Sasaki has become an international symbol of peace.
Stock number: NB458