Research Project
Research Project
Exhibitions
Through arts, connecting humans and trees
GALERIE ICARE 2025 Jan 22 - Apr 12
7, av. de Longchamp 92210 Saint-Cloud, France
Frederic Leyre shows a selection of limited edition prints on traditional washi paper, which carry the energy of the forests of Yakushima Island, Iriomote Island, Ishigaki Island, and the mountains of Kyoto, through a poetic quest for the Spirit of the Tree, or how reviving the ancestral links we forge with the forest inspires the world of tomorrow.
"While humanity has lived almost its entire evolution in contact with trees, today, we are cut off from our roots and deprived of the powerful knowledge that the forest brings us. Frédéric Leyre is keenly aware of the importance of this issue and wants to bring humanity closer to the forest, which he believes is essential if we are to build a regenerative civilization based on living beings.
His photos invite us to reconnect with the spirit of the tree. Frédéric's photos plunge us into an acute awareness of the need to build harmony between man and nature through the calming power they exude and the different relationships with time they inspire.
After several years of experience in art, music, cultural production, and communications, Frédéric traveled to Japan in 2020, fascinated by a culture where the ancestral relationship with trees is still alive. Frédéric wandered into a primary forest on the island of Yakushima. His life is turned upside down. Stranded in Japan because of a worldwide pandemic, he lives for four months among the thousand-year-old cedars of the primeval forest. Now based in Kyoto, Frédéric leads the Kodama project (Spirit of the Tree 木霊), a hybrid project combining Research and Experimentation at the intersection of Art, Science, and Spirituality.
Through photos, installations, and even retreats, he proposes harmonizing body, heart, and mind, helping to rediscover inner peace and awareness of the Living. In 2023, Frédéric Leyre was a research artist at the Kyoto Institute of Contemporary Arts (Kyoto University of the Arts)."
Galerie Icare
KODAMA, SPIRIT OF THE TREE
Photo and Poem installation
Kyoto, April 9th- May 8th 2022
1400 visitors
Kyoto, April 9th- May 8th 2022
Installation in a traditional house of Kyoto
during KYOTOGRAPHIE Photo Festival.
Through photos and poem installations, a poetic wake-up call, in which The Spirit of the tree invites us to renew a vital link with him.
This living installation of a poem and photos was a great opportunity to answer questions and share knowledge with visitors about the ancestral links we need to renew with trees and the importance of wild forests for the future of humanity. Talking and sharing ideas about how ancestral forests inspire our future was also the purpose behind artworks.
A scenography as a tribute to The Daisugi Cedars Technique, that some foresters from Kitayama (North Mountains of Kyoto) still maintain since several generations.
A contribution to highlight this ancestral technique form the north mountains of Kyoto (Kitayama).
This traditional cedar cut creates perfectly vertical and strong branches from the same mother tree. Decade after decade, new generations of branches grow, without cutting the original tree. This woods were traditionally growing to be used in the construction of houses, but it ended with the acceleration of the modern housing industry. Fortunately, some fields with thousands of daisugi are still in Kitayama, and also talented skilled artisans ready to share this knowledge. I hope that the new generation of foresters, carpenters, architects, designers, artists… will be inspired to use daisugi wood to improve contemporary virtuous process of partnership with nature.
All the exhibition is supported by Daisugi branches from a local forestry company in Kitayama, Kyoto.
No plastic links, no nails were used, only traditional knots made with forester’s cords.
At the end of the exhibition, all the tree branches of Kitayama Daisugi have been upcycled to create pergola on the rooftop of an old house in the neighbourood, to bring shadow on the building, during the hot summers of Kyoto.
Photo©Frederic Leyre
Salon Messieurs-Dames - Paris
Installation & Performances
At the invitation of Salon Messieurs-Dames, Kodama Spirit of Tree bumped into hair-spa customers, in the middle of urban daily life in Paris to allow a moment of reconnection with nature, as a wake-up call to consider the forest as a part of ourselves.
A five-month exhibition, in the heart of Le Marais, with special guests, artists, and collectives wich aim to create bridges between the plant world and humans (Pauline Miko, Lico Nishimoto, Collective Seeds, ...)
Messieurs-Dames - 8, rue de la Corderie 75003 Paris (from Jun-2019 to Oct-2019) @salonmessieursdames
