Research Project
Research Project
Exhibitions
Through arts, connecting humans and trees
COCO GALLERY KYOTO 2025 Apr 11 - May 11
〒 7604-8015 京都府 京都市 中京区 鍋屋町 209-2
Kodama Experience,
When Ancestral Forests Inspire Our Future
屋久島、西表島、石垣島、そして京都—日本の古代の森に息づくエネルギーを静かに映し出す、伝統的な和紙に刷られた限定版の写真作品です。フレデリックの写真と言葉は、「Kodama Experience（木の精霊・コダマ）」のメッセージを求めて巡る詩的な旅へと私たちを誘います。それは、目に見えるつながりと、目には映らぬ魂の絆を静かに呼び覚ます、森からの神秘的な息吹です。心を鎮める力と、時の流れに対するさまざまな感覚を通して、彼の写真集は、人と樹木の世界とのあいだに育むべき調和への深い気づきを私たちにもたらしてくれます。
A selection of limited-edition prints on traditional washi paper captures the energy of the ancient Japanese forests of Yakushima, Iriomote, Ishigaki, and Kyoto. Frederic's photos and words invite us on a poetic quest for the message of Kodama, the Spirit of the Tree, which calls us to recognize our visible and invisible connections. Through the power of appeasement and the different relationships to the time they inspire, Frederic's photographs immerse us in a deeper awareness of the harmony that must be fostered between humans and the world of trees.
人類の多くは今、自然環境とのつながりを完全に失ったまま進化の道を歩んでいる。太古の森と人との距離をもう一度近づけることは、地球上の生命を守り、再生へと向かう文明を築くために不可欠である。このビジョンを形にするために、フレデリックは「Kodama Experience」を創作した。これはアート・科学・そして古代の叡智が交差する、そして先祖の知恵が交差するハイブリッド・プロジェクトである。写真や展示、インスタレーションを通して、企業や医療機関を含む現代社会のあらゆる場に、森の感覚を届ける試みでもある。ギャラリーの上階では、彼が屋久島で主催するリトリート体験についての短編映像を見ることができる。
A significant part of humanity is now evolving in total separation from its natural environment. Bringing humans closer to ancient forests is vital for building a regenerative civilization and saving life on Earth. To support his vision, Frederic created the Kodama Experience. A hybrid project at the intersection of art, science, and ancestral knowledge to open forest reconnection through photos, exhibitions, and installations wherever in contemporary life, including corporations and hospitals. On the gallery's upper floor, visitors can view a short film about the retreat experiences he organizes in Yakushima.
1972年フランス生まれ。美術、音楽、文化プロジェクトなどの経験を経て、パリの通信業界で20年間活動した後、2009年にブランドエクスピアリエンスを専門とするクリエイティブ＆プロダクションスタジオを設立。地球の生命を守るために現行のシステムを変える必要性を痛感し、古代の森からインスパイアされたエコロジープロジェクトに取り組むことを決意する。2020年には日本に移住し、木々との祖先的な関係が多くの生活 面で今も息づいている文化から学ぶための道を選択。屋久島を訪れた際、パンデミックによるロックダウンが突然発生し、原生林の千年杉の中で4か月間滞在することとなった。この経験により、木々の知識を可能な限り多くの人々に広めるという使命にさらに専念するようになった。
Frederic Leyre is a French photographer and an experiential designer-producer based in Kyoto. After spending 25 years in the communications industry in Paris, where he founded a brand experience agency in 2009, he decided to engage in an ecological project inspired by ancient forests. He moved to Japan in 2020 to learn from a culture where living practices of the ancestral relationship to trees are still alive in many aspects of life. During one journey on Yakushima Island, the global pandemic lockdown occurred. He stayed for several months among the millennium cedars of the primal forest. This experience deepened his commitment to spreading awareness of forests to the largest audience.
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
