Haiku Adventure

Reading the fine prints.

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Haiku Adventure is the work of James Morgan and Ceri Williams. It channels their conversations about growing up on islands and their shared connection with nature into a game. The art style draws heavily on the Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition and, although still in development, will be featured in an exhibition at the William Morris Gallery.

The exhibition, which runs from Feb 26 to May 26, is fitting since it was an earlier show at the gallery that brought ukiyo-e prints into the equation. “The prints seem to acknowledge that capturing a truly accurate representation of nature is an impossibility,” says Williams, “and instead shows a stylized view that gives a fleeting impression of how the natural environment is experienced.” He adds that the absence of a single point of perspective also means the image can be explored by the viewer’s eye as if they were moving around the scene instead of at a fixed point.

At the same time, Williams and Morgan had started to look at haiku poetry and how it aims to capture an experience of the natural world. “Stylized ukiyo-e prints offer postcard snapshots of nature, while haiku poetry attempts to remove the ‘self’ entirely to try and get closer to the truth [of ] nature. Alongside this, Shinto worships the forces of nature by imbuing every part of nature from animals, trees, plants and even mountains with its spirit, the kami.”