Two bonsai entrusted to him — and Koji Hiramatsu brings them to the 100th Kokufu-ten. Before the exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, we quietly accompany him through the final preparations: repotting and Moss Application. Placing someone else's trees on the highest stage — we are here for that unhurried time of readying.
The 100th Kokufu-ten. At this milestone exhibition, Koji Hiramatsu is not only presenting his own work. He is bringing two bonsai entrusted to him by others to the most prestigious show in the country. The weight of that responsibility shows itself not in words, but in the quiet, deliberate movements of hands at work.
What does it mean to exhibit a tree someone has placed in your care? It is not a question of technique. It begins with sensing what time that tree has lived through, and what feelings its owner has poured into it. Only then does the work of 'finishing' truly begin. To be trusted with that responsibility is to carry someone else's faith in your hands.
Part of the final preparation before an exhibition is repotting — moving the tree from its everyday training pot into a display pot. That single choice can transform how the tree is seen entirely.
What quality do you want to draw out? Where is the front? The color of the pot, its depth, the shape of its rim — each question is answered in turn, and the hands follow. There is no single correct answer. And yet, if someone can choose without hesitation, it is likely because they have spent a long time quietly cultivating their own sense of what is right.
Moss Application is part of the final preparation for display. Moss is not decoration. It is the act of composing the 'ground' on which the tree stands. When the soil disappears beneath a surface of green, the presence of the tree shifts — something in the way it occupies space changes. A small landscape comes into being inside the pot.
Once the tree is carried to the venue, no further adjustments can be made. That is precisely why the final preparations are carried out in quiet tension. Rather than what to add, the time it takes to reach the judgment that nothing more need be touched — that is what long years of practice have quietly built.
The Kokufu-ten reaching its 100th edition means that for nearly a century, people have been bringing their bonsai to this stage. That many years, that many trees, that many layers of feeling — and this year, once again, the trees are lined up in that same place.
A tree cannot take the stage on its own. A person must carry it there. And now, Koji Hiramatsu carries the trees entrusted to him. What it means to stand within that continuity — it is something that quietly comes to mind while following the hands at work in preparation.
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