A catalog of the innovative work of ten Japanese artists in the Southeastern United States

Ten Japanese artists, invited to attend seven institutions in the Carolinas, interpreted the link and disconnect between artificial and natural, and modernity and environment. Using nature and common images, the artists spent six weeks in developing their response to their city, the environment, and the world.

Each work presented in this volume proposes a reverent understanding of humanity's relationship and response to its environment. Ranging from naphthalene castings to imaginary topographical landscapes to sound-based and multimedia sculptures, the artists used only natural materials to create art. Analyzing age and decay, life and rebirth, and destruction and renewal, the artists engaged with the idea of circularity and its implications for us and our world.

Through in-depth descriptions and striking images, Force of Nature provides an insightful look into the re-imagined world of these ten artists. With commentary by the project collaborators, Mark Sloan and Brad Thomas, this multiyear, multidimensional project challenges the reader to look again, to look back, and to reflect.

Mark Sloan has been the director and senior curator at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston since 1994 and is the author of six books.

Brad Thomas is an artist and director of the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College.