ArchiveXYZ: Lisbon Oceanarium

UNDERWATER FORESTS – LISBON OCEANARIUM
Takashi Amano, 18/7/1954 – 4/8/2015

Coincidences are always strange. In the last post, about Lisbon Oceanarium, I wrote that I intended to make a post about Takashi Amano and his Underwater Forests installed there since February 2015. I wrote that in July 30… Takashi Amano died in August 4… though I only knew around the middle of September. During that time I thought several times about the post I would do though I never found the time to do it. And during all that time he wasn’t here anymore… only his Underwater Forests that keep growing in absolute peace and harmony at Lisbon Oceanarium.

Takashi Amano was a pioneer in the art of Nature Aquariums. Plants, fishes, sand and rocks are put in a gigantic aquarium and Time and Nature do the rest, with the help of a few people that keep in vigil to maintain water and light in the right state, proportion and equilibrium. Everything is natural there, the light of the sun comes from above and the plants and fishes contribute to maintain the water clean and everything healthy. These Underwater Forests were meant to keep growing there in the following three years and they will.

Below is the video I recorded in the beginning of July and a small selection of photographs. Below is also a short text I wrote to introduce the video and 14 Streams, short poems I wrote to go with the video. Only the first 7 are there because I made the video on that same day. The other 7 were written three days later, but they are part of a whole that will keep living and flowing just like the Underwater Forests, only for much more time…

About Takashi Amano and his work as a photographer, designer and aquarist see the following links:

http://www.amanotakashi.net/

http://www.adana.co.jp/en/

http://www.adaaust.com.au/gallery/gallery.htm

«Nature aquarium. Another vision of Nature and Life inspired by the Japanese aesthetical and philosophical vision of the world founded in the acceptance of fugacity and imperfection of all things, aiming the inner states of quietness and simplicity also shared by Zen Buddhism. This peaceful vision of life and the world is Wabi-sabi. Wabi is “quietness” and Sabi is “simplicity”.»

UNDERWATER FORESTS - Takashi Amano, video by São Ludovino

STREAMS

I

The beat of my heart
sounds in pure synchrony
in the vegetable waving of your mind.

II

As the water speaks to me
Dancing in my fish veins
Your hands touch the limpid sky.

III

After the rain of a thousand days
The water moon returns
To shine through a thousand nights.

IV

Along the invisible streams
I gather flowers and stars
The same that will bloom under you skin.

V

And while the new season sleeps
In the depth of your eyes
The old roots spread across the rosy dawn.

VI

The cold does not enter into my wide home
Beneath my sunny roof of rainbow soft clouds
You warm your hands along your cold winter.

VII

All the streams join and flow
Through the landscapes of our souls
As the first pure water of time.

São Ludovino, 23/9/2015

*****************************************************

STREAMS

VIII

The only words there is are made of air, earth and water
They flow in the common stream
Fish-birds dancing with waving clouds.

IX

Eyes in the hands, in the heart, in the skin
Breathing soul in the ocean of time
This moment begins with the touch of reality.

X

Each grain of sand brings eternity
In each imperceptible reflection
Mind to mind, twinkling the never-ending breath.

XI

Here the story begins in the red pages
Growing underneath the surface
From within come all the whispers hidden beyond.

XII

Hearing the travelling clouds above the mountain
Printed in the ethereal body of transparency
Chords of wisdom in the awaken heart.

XIII

Breathing the light from the primordial source
The lips taste the mysteries of simplicity
In wonder the sun stops and shines brighter.

XIV

And the old child grabs from the ground
The fallen beams to weave the light boat
That sails in the blue pond of the newborn universe.

São Ludovino - 26/9/2015 – 5:19 a.m.

Underwater Forests - Takashi Amano, photography by São Ludovino.

The Lisbon Oceanarium opened to the public in 1998, during the World Exhibition of Lisbon. The old Vasco da Gama Aquarium still exists (since 1898) and is still a valuable alive window to the knowledge of marine life. Oceanarium is located at Park of the Nations and has much bigger dimensions.

The central aquarium has around five million liters of water, representing the “global ocean” populated by more than one hundred species coming from the four main oceans. Observing this main aquarium one has the impression of being under the sea and walking among all those beings. All so different, they coexist harmoniously, move like dancers and beholders of beauty. Just a few inches from our hands is the shark, that doesn’t bite, the moonfish in constant orbit around the oceans, the white shoals that seen from the distance seem snowflakes drawing paths in the water. And here and there pass colourful small fishes that add glimpses of rainbow to the immense blue.

There are also amphibians, birds and fishes from rivers and lakes in habitats that simulate the original, in shapes, colours and even temperature. In the penguins corner is really cold; in the tropical corner there’s a small rainforest and the water vapor mixes with heat waves and fill the air with a mysterious fog.

Since February 2015, it’s growing an underwater forest conceived by Takashi Amano in a set of linked aquariums around a large room. This forest will grow there for the next three years. That will be the subject for another post.

OCEANÁRIO DE LISBOA - http://www.oceanario.pt/