Photographs of sunsets in Buddhist holy lands and hand-scrolled waka poems created by a Japanese Buddhist nun will be on display in Columbia's Low Memorial Library Rotunda June 12-23.

The exhibition, "Meditations at Sunset: Drawn to the Evening Sun of Amida's Western Paradise," by Abbess Seikan Fushimi of Tokujo Myoin convent, Kyoto, is presented by the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia. On Monday, June 12, the public is invited to celebrate the exhibition opening by attending a program of events from 1-4 P.M. Abbess Fushimi will discuss her works at 1 P.M. She will preside at a tea ceremony demonstration at 1:45 P.M. and a flower arranging demonstration at 2:45 P.M.

Abbess Fushimi is an accomplished poet and calligrapher, in addition to being iemoto master of the Keiho School of Tea Ceremony and Flower Arrangement in Osaka and Kyoto, Japan. A reception will follow from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. The exhibition was supported by the Toshiba International Foundation and The Japan Foundation.

Abbess Fushmi, 61, has been a nun of the Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism since age 14. For the last 30 years she traveled the world visiting Buddhist holy lands, and more recently, began photographing sunsets during her travels in Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia and Nepal. She addresses the connection between her religion and her art by suggesting that Amida Buddha welcomes people into the Pure Land heaven with the golden glow of sunset. "When I take my pictures," she explains, "I lose all awareness of myself. I guess you could say I achieve a kind of emptiness, or mu, as we say in Japanese."

Abbess Seikan Fushimi

Born in 1938 in Tokyo, she is the great-granddaughter of Japan's last shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the granddaughter of Prince Hiroyasu Fushimi and the daughter of Count Hirohido and Countess Toyoko Fushimi.