Laurent Barrera

Shin Tô

Shintô or “the way of the Kamis (spirits)” is, in essence, uniquely Japanese. This spiritual approach is a way of respectfully connecting with the sacredness of Nature.

Today, the theme of the environment is at the heart of our concerns, and the intention of this project is to take a fresh, aesthetic look at this issue from the original angle of the Shinto approach.

This approach also enables us to connect with our most ancient shamanic and druidic traditions. It also ties in with our most essential aspirations for the protection of our environment and, consequently, the future of our humanity!

In ancient Japan, the faithful worshipped elements of nature that exuded particular beauty and power, such as waterfalls, mountains, rocks, animals, trees and so on…

What if Shintô’s message today is to lead us to reconnect with Nature?

Through beauty, mystery and the sacred, the “Shin Tô” project is an aesthetic invitation to take care of our planet and our relationship with our environment.

Each image is conceived as a photographic haiku, a dense, chiselled creation whose form invites poetry. They form a corpus of images that bear singular witness to our most ancient cultural and patrimonial heritages, and to our need to connect with that which is greater than ourselves: nature, the sacred, the divine.
This project grew out of my personal practice of Zen meditation and Japanese martial arts (3rd Dan in Iaido and Shintaido practitioner) over many years.

It is also based on my many trips to Japan’s Kii Peninsula and the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu, as well as pilgrimages to Shikoku and Sasaguri and the Kumano Kodo and Compostela routes.

This series will be completed at the end of 2024 with the publication of a photo book by Escourbiac.