天堂也好，地獄也罷，這兩個地方，我都想像不到有花的存在。只要越過塵世的邊界，花就會消逝而去。
埃及是最早在儀式中使用花材的人。他們特別熱愛一種藍色的睡蓮。每天早上，第一道陽光照射大地時，藍睡蓮的花瓣就會舒張地綻開，顯露出內在明亮黃的花萼。正午過後，它像逆時倒退的影片一樣，蜷縮回花苞的形態，沉睡到水底以下。從它每日重複的習性中，埃及人看見創造和重生。
埃及神殿最高級的園藝師「領受阿蒙的恩賜者」（Bearer of divine offerings of Amun）每日照顧著藍睡蓮，將它們製成引致幻力的宗教聖酒，或是以紙莎草的莖束起花瓣，預備將臨的葬禮用的花束。可以說，這是人類最早的「花道」。可是，在現今的埃及，連藍睡蓮的蹤跡都很難看見了。
2013年夏天，一種稱為雨久花（Monochoria korsakowii）的藍紫色花朵在日本福島南相馬巿海岸邊盛放。這種花因為人類城市擴張的緣故，在當地已經消失很久。2011年海嘯發生兩年半後，人們離開後，它們卻被喚醒。在破壞殆盡的土地上，它們像鬼火一樣安靜地燃燒著。
花道家片桐功敦聽到這個故事後，稍作準備就進入了「圈內」，即福島第一核電廠周邊20-30公里的撤離區域。他看見的景像是寂靜的，帶著詭異的氣氛。海岸邊只剩下一間漁民的房屋，種植於花園的花蔓延到屋內，在那個瞬間，他感受到生與死的替換。他擷下幾朵花，由於沒有花器，他使用漁民留下來的水靴，完成了第一件在福島的插花作品。
那是2013年，接近年終的事情。從那個冬天的開始，直至次年的7月31日，片桐功敦住在圈內一間臨時屋。他採擷遇見的花草，執拾人們留下來的生活物品作為花器，例如鞋、頭盔、玩具、鋼琴等，在廢墟內完成插花創作。
行走時，在半空飄浮的放射物質隨著呼吸，進入片桐功敦的肺部。也許是出於這個原因，他體內的時間與廢墟的時間逐漸重疊。他開始使用整個環境，作為一種非自然也非完全人造的花器。例如停在半路的生銹車輛，以及它四周的雜草，在那一瞬間，都是為了花道家選擇的花材而生。
片桐功敦1973年生於日本大阪的花道世家。由於父親遇上意外，他24歲時，就繼承了花道みささぎ流，成為該派的指導者。那一年，他處於直面死亡的困惑中，還在插花世界的入口處徘徊。偶然，他在家中的書架翻到一頁印有花道大師中川幸夫的插花作品。
準確來說，那甚至花都不是，而是變成鮮紅花泥的康乃馨。那刻，他的內心彷彿被擊中般，強烈感受到中川幸夫所說的：「所謂立華，就是花踮著腳尖的拼死一舞。」
日本花道最古老的流派「池坊」確立於戰亂之世。在那個戰亂不斷，以血還血的時代，花道的誕生，是以立華的形式，形成令人身心清靜的空間。中川幸夫一生不絕思考的一個問題，就是如果他生於花道剛創立的時代，毫無傳統可以依循的話，自己到底會怎樣插花。這個問題也影響到片桐功敦。如果他真的要投身花道的話，他想，自己追求的到底是什麼。
在南相馬巿博物館，片桐功敦逐漸接近他的解答。圈內生活期間，他會攜帶蒐集回來的花材，到收藏了日本不同時期古物的南相馬巿博物館拍照。他借用繩文時代的土器，讓植物與遠古的時間相遇。
一厘米厚的土壤，差不多需要100年的時間才能形成。博物館收藏的遠古土器，是過去生命的證明。當片桐功敦在這些器物上插花時，感激之心像泡泡一樣浮現在他的心中。繩文時代的土器大多都是食具，將食物放進用泥土製成的器物，就是一個以過去的生命，滋養著現今生命的行為。
也是那個時刻，他想到，現今的人都習慣視插花為花的擺設藝術。但他所追求的，是讓現在的生命與過去的生命相遇。這也是他將這本攝影集命名為《Sacrifice》的原因。
當片桐功敦在圈內游走時，他發現所謂的輻射處理，就是將10厘米的表土全部挖起，放進一個容器裡，再集中運到其他地方深埋。如果說土壤是死去的生命為未來留下來的禮物。而他在圈內遊走期間，目睹了上千年的生命被浪費掉。這就是我們這一代人類為後世留下來的東西嗎？他一邊想，一邊思考。
對遠古的埃及人，或是對日本的花道來說，花都是連接生與死之間的橋樑和象徵。也許，花是人間中最接近邊界的事物。但那仍然是只屬於我們的，只有在大地上才能享受的earthly delight。
Neither in heaven nor in hell can I envision the existence of flowers. Once they step over the boundaries of this mortal life, they fade away.
The Egyptians were the earliest people to make use of flowers in rituals. They were especially fond of a type of blue water lilies. Every morning, when the first ray of sunshine is casted upon the land, blue water lilies stretch out their petals in relief, showing the bright yellow sepals within. After midday, like a film on rewind, they clasp and return to their bud form, to sink into deep slumber under the water. From this pattern of daily repetition, the Egyptians saw creation and regeneration.
The “Bearer of divine offerings of Amun”, being Egyptian shrine gardeners of the highest class, took care of the blue water lilies everyday. They used the lilies to make psychedelic holy wines, or tied up their petals with reed stems to make a bouquet for an impending funeral. One may say, this was mankind’s earliest “ikebana“. And yet, nowadays in Egypt, not even a trace of blue water lilies can be seen.
In the summer of 2013, a kind of indigo flower named monochoria korsakowii bloomed on the shores of Minamisoma city, Fukushima, Japan. The expansion of cities has caused this kind of flower to disappear from the area for a long time. Yet two and a half years after the 2011 tsunami, once the people had left, they were awakened. In a land of utter devastation, they burned silently like ghostly fire.
Having heard this story, Ikebana practitioner Atsunobu Katagiri prepared lightly and entered into the “circle”, that is, the evacuation zone spanning the 20 to 30 kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. There was dead silence in what he saw, with an eerie atmosphere. Only a fisherman’s house was left by the shore, and the flowers planted in its garden had spread into the house. In that instant, he felt the transference between life and death. He picked a few flowers, and because there were no vases around, he used a water boot left by the fisherman, and completed his first ikebana work in Fukushima.
That was in 2013, close to the end of the year. From that winter onwards until 31 July the following year, Atsunobu Katagiri lived in a temporary house inside the circle. He picked flowers as he encountered them, collected everyday life objects people left behind to be his vases, such as shoes, helmets, toys, pianos, etc, and completed ikebana creations in the ruins.
As he walked about, radioactive substances in the air entered his lungs through his breathing. Perhaps for this reason, time inside his body gradually came to overlap with time in the ruins. He started using entire environments as a sort of vase that is neither natural nor entirely man-made. For instance, a rusty car in the middle of the road and the wild grass around it, for a moment, existed for the flowers chosen by the kadoka.
Atsunobu Katagiri was born in 1973 in Osaka, Japan into an ikebana family. Due to his father’s accident, at 24 he succeeded his father as master of the Misasagi ikebana school. That year, amidst the perplexity of facing death right on, he was also skirting the entrance to the world of ikebana. By chance, on a bookshelf at home, he flipped open a page showing the work of ikebana master Yukio Nakagawa.
To be exact, it was not even a flower, but a carnation that was turned into a red flower paste. At that instant, he felt as if his heart was struck and he resonated strongly with what Yukio Nakagawa said, “What we call Rikka is really a flower tiptoeing for the dance to its death.”
The oldest ikebana school in Japan, Ikenobō was established during wartime. In an era of incessant wars and bloody vengeance, ikebana was born by engendering spaces that induce bodily and mental peace through the Rikka form. One question that Yukio Nakagawa contemplated all through his life was that if he was born in an era when ikebana was just established, with no traditions to follow, how would he have arranged his flowers. This question influenced Atsunobu Katagiri too. If he was really to commit to ikebana, he thought, what was it that he wanted to pursue.
In the Minamisoma City Museum, Atsunobu Katagiri was slowly edging closer to his answer. During life within the ring, he would take the flowers he collected to the museum, which houses antiques from across different eras in Japan, and photograph the flowers there. He would borrow earthenware from the Jōmon period to create an encounter between plants and ancient temporality.
A soil as thick as one centimetre takes almost 100 years’ time to form. The ancient earthenware collected by the museum is a testimony to past lives. When Atsunobu Katagiri arranged his flowers with these objects, gratitude welled up in his heart like bubbles. Earthenware from the Jōmon period was mostly tableware. To contain food with objects made of clay is an act of taking past lives to rejuvenate life at present.
It was also at that moment that he realised that people nowadays are accustomed to seeing ikebana as the art of floral arrangement. What he sought, however, was to facilitate the encounter between present lives and past lives. Such was also the reason why he named this photography book “Sacrifice”.
Walking about inside the circle, Atsunobu Katagiri realised that the so-called radioactive waste management is to dig up the top 10 centimetres of soil, store them in a container, and transfer them en masse to other places for deep burial. If we talk about soil as a gift to the future from lives past, wandering inside the circle, he witnessed thousands of years of lives wasted. Is this what our generation of humans shall pass on to future generations? He thought and reflected.
To ancient Egyptians, or in terms of Japanese ikebana, flowers are the bridge and symbol connecting life and death. Perhaps, flowers are objects closest to the threshold in the mortal realm. But still, they are earthly delight that belongs to our realm only, to be indulged only on the land.
