Tree of Life - Labyrinth of Hidden Messages

Daly Co. actively works with artists and artist groups to make props, features, performance accessories and stage elements to support the presentation of performance work. The Tasai Collective is a Vancouver-based artist collective in which Daly Co. founder Patrick is an active member. The group's motto is “Friendship through collaboration”, and the collective members include people of Japanese heritage living in Vancouver. Founded on poetry created at the intersection of language, the Tasai collective creates performances presented in Japanese, with English translations included live through projections and other methods. The Labyrinth of Hidden Messages was an evolution of Tasai beyond the stage in the form of a poetic expression for community engagement, presented at šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl'e7énḵ Square in Vancouver. We were asked to create the “Tree of Life” located in the centre of the Labyrinth. This tree acted as a point of exchange where participants would move through the labyrinth and write a message of hope to hang on the tree. Moving back through the labyrinth, they would end up on the other side of the tree and receive a message of hope written by another. The design profiles are derived from the Japanese character for tree 木, revolving around a centre axis to create an array of five segments informed by the sakura flower, giving the tree its volume. The design is based on a kit of parts that allows the tree to be reused for multiple other performances. In year two of the Labyrinth of Hidden Messages, we added the Kodama, spirits in Japanese folklore that inhabit trees. These were also derived from 木 and have been used for various Tasai performances over the years.