Shelley Jacobson | Sea of Trees

When a dominant identity is projected onto a place by society; how does this affect people’s use, experience, and perception of the said place? Aokigahara-jukai (which translates as “Sea of Trees”) is a forest in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, widely known as a suicide destination.  sea of trees attempts to illustrate how the social construction and representation of place can lead to a very fixed understanding, and how information can travel and skew – whether through language, context, or the audience. It recognises human compulsion toward morbidness, and the far-reaching consequences of socially constructed landmarks, through the example of Aokigahara-jukai.