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Meridian Stone Kaori Homma 2014 - 2023 Related publication: Homma Meridian at Street Road: Volume 1 – Meridian Stone, Editors: Kaori Homma, Emily Artinian Spring 2024, 6×9 in, 15×23 cm, 76 pages Hardcover, Dust Jacket: ISBN #9781737275503 Softcover, Dust Jacket: ISBN #9781737275503 Purchase hardcover here. $40 Purchase softcover here. $25 |
Kaori Homma's Meridian Stone brought together a Street Road community project, Street Road Rocks, with the artist's Homma Meridian project (installed at Street Road and multiple other sites) in an ongoing collaboration: a stone taken from Street Road and carved with the longitudinal coordinates of the Greenwich Prime Meridian (0º0’0’’) was given to participants. Each artist/participant was asked to photograph the stone in a location geographically important to them, and to add a short personal narrative.
The project investigates our understanding of place and history — both personal and social — and the ways in which these intersect, highlighting the imaginary and movable nature of boundaries and questioning the perception of our position on the earth. Homma states: “As with the Greenwich Prime Meridian Line, boundaries and demarcations are necessarily a means of orientating ourselves within the increasingly multi-cultural, multi-ethnic social context we face in this shrinking world. However, at the same time these demarcations and boundaries also create tensions and barriers. The idea behind the Homma Meridian project is to draw an imaginary line which points to the North and South Pole in a specific location, using ephemeral material, which acts as a substitute for the “Prime Meridian”. Dozens of people from far corners of the planet have taken part, creating a collective set of personal meditations. Begun in 2014, the project is ongoing, has been displayed as a series of lightboxes, and will be published as a set in 2019. To participate, email us. 
Stonecarver Iain Cotton, in Bath, UK carved the meridian coordinates, and was also a contributor. He writes:
I was thinking about scale and placement. Where is this stone’s prime meridian? What are the right coordinates for these zero’s? How big should their footprint be? I was thinking about ellipses within ellipses, and figure/ground relationships, and little upside down right angled triangles connecting time and space. I was thinking about the clockwise and counter clockwise orbits of 3 mm of sharp tungsten. The rhythm of hammer on chisel. Breathing and being precise. I was thinking about hours, minutes and seconds. Not thinking about the time but remembering to count it. Carving time from my other deadline. |