Miyazawa Tin ((install)) Official
Tin is a modest metal. It does not gleam like silver, nor fight like iron. It bends before it breaks. It protects what is fragile. In Miyazawa’s hands, a tin box became a cosmos: he would line it with poems and give it to a child who had no lunch. He would seal it with rainwater and bury it in a rice field as an offering to the soil’s spirit.
This is the Miyazawa Tin.
— after Kenji Miyazawa
Miyazawa looked up from his radish field. The wind carried a train’s whistle across the valley. He held up a dented tin cup. miyazawa tin
Be not defeated by the rain. Be not defeated by the wind. Let the tin be your temple. Tin is a modest metal
“For the meal that never came.” “For the friend who walked home in the dark.” “For the star that fell into the paddy.” It protects what is fragile