Trevor Foster × Shin Koyama
An undead samurai, first drawn in sumi ink by my friend and mentor Shin Koyama in Arita, Japan. Then we made it into a sculpture together.
Watch the story ↓A friendship of almost ten years, and one undead samurai. I went back to Arita to make something with the man who gave me a place to live when I was totally broke. This is the short film about it.
When I started out in my twenties I had very little money. Shin-san gave me a place to live and work, cold beer, and access to his very strange imagination.
He would hand me drawings of unusual creatures and I would do my best to sculpt them. Almost ten years later, I went back to do it again.
Shin drew an undead samurai in the middle of combat, surrounded by flying arrows. It was a very beautiful sumi drawing and it was not a blueprint.
My first attempt was a helmet sitting on a skull. Shin looked at it and said it needed a body. He was right.
Around then Shin sent me the story of Minamoto no Yorimasa, a poet and archer who was wounded by an arrow in his final battle.
After that the arrows made a lot more sense to me. They belong to a story.
Shin Shogun arrives in a black box with Yorimasa’s name in gold on the lid, packed in fitted foam.
The helmet lifts off the body. Turn the sound on.
When Shin-san talks about crossing the river, I don't hear it as something dark. I hear it as a reminder to enjoy the side we're on. Trevor Foster
After almost ten years of friendship, making this together felt like a pretty good use of our time. For now, the work continues, and luckily, the fridge is still stocked with cold beer.
