Encroachment is a site-responsive project exploring the shifting relationship between human presence and natural reoccupation within Fujino’s satoyama landscape.

At its centre, Carbon Bloom is a spiral installation constructed from locally sourced bamboo, a material that embodies both ecological abundance and encroachment.

Bamboo forests in Fujino have increasingly spread into surrounding land, altering ecosystems and contributing to soil instability. Sourced through local forest management practices, the bamboo connects the artwork to existing cycles of charcoal production, reuse, decay, and regeneration.

Darkened with sumi ink and controlled surface burning, the bamboo evokes carbon transforming from an invisible atmospheric presence into visible form. The spiral draws from patterns of growth and regeneration found in nature and permaculture, suggesting expansion, accumulation, erosion, and return.

Emerging from the landscape like a dark organic trace, the installation invites viewers to consider nature as a living system in continual transformation.