News

Re-Imagining Reality

Artist Makoto Fujimura launched the International Arts Movement to ‘re-humanize the world.’

On September 11, 2001, Makoto Fujimura was attending an artists’ prayer meeting in Uptown Manhattan when he heard of an accident at the Twin Towers, three blocks from where he lived with his family. Jumping on the subway toward his home, he found himself stuck underground, incommunicado for the next two hours while hell broke out in the streets above. He finally emerged to smoke and ash and a flood of fleeing workers. Running against the tide, he reached his studio ten blocks north of Ground Zero, where he found his wife and learned that his three children were safe, covered with ash but spared.

In the weeks that followed, only residents were allowed into the area near Ground Zero. Fujimura found himself talking with shell-shocked neighbors over endless cups of coffee. Many were artists. “There were candles popping up everywhere [as impromptu memorials]. We wanted to do something, too, temporary, authentic, broken, revealing where we were.” For Fujimura, those conversations deepened thoughts that had begun with the Columbine disaster. “What is it that we have to deal with, this dehumanized reality that we are living in? What is the role of imagination in that?” One response was TriBeCa Temporary, a space Fujimura created in which local artists could create experimentally to restore wholeness.

Fujimura creates large, shimmering abstract paintings using a traditional Japanese technique called Nihonga. At the age of 13, his family moved from Tokyo to New Jersey, where his father, a linguistic scientist, worked at the storied Bell Labs. “Mako,” as Fujimura is known, attributes some of his love of visual communication to the frustration he felt learning English from scratch. Returning to Japan for graduate studies in fine arts, he had to relearn Japanese. While there, he became a Christian.

It happened through his art, as he learned to use the gorgeous metallic pigments—gold, silver, azurite, malachite—that Nihonga features. “When it came down to looking at this sublime grace that was flowing out of my own hands,” he writes in one essay, “I didn’t know how to justify it. … I knew that inside my heart there was no place to put that kind of beauty.” His wife had come to personal faith in Christ. She took him to church. In the lives of other Christians, Fujimura saw a space for beauty.

Returning to New York, he experienced immediate success as an artist even though his transparent faith and love for beauty placed him outside the art mainstream. Joining Tim Keller’s then fledgling Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Fujimura became an elder and later helped to launch the church plant the Village Church. Fujimura is a prolific essayist and recently published a memoir, River Grace. (Some of his writings, which reflect on literature and society as well as art, can be found at the website makotofujimura.com.)

“I advocate for art in the church, and in the art world I’m advocating for the gospel. I need words to do that.” He has launched an organization, the International Arts Movement, to “re-humanize the world.”

“Artists are leaders simply because we are in the ‘enterprise of persuasion,’ ” he has written. “With that [comes] great responsibility … to use that persuasive influence to create the ‘world that ought to be.’ “

Tim Stafford is a CT senior writer.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Makoto Fujimura’s website links to his gallery, blog, and event schedule.

Fujimura wrote about Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper for the Christian Vision Project.

This article is the first of five profiles in Christianity Today‘s cover package on “The New Culture Makers.” Andy Crouch argues that our best response to the world is to make something of it.

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

Cover Story

Creating Culture

Hope for Troubled Times

When a Professor of Aramaic Meets Hollywood

The Ironic Faith of Emergents

McLaren Emerging

My Top 5 Books on Food

Bookmarks

On the Grand Canyon Bus

News

It's Primetime in Iran

News

Looking for Home

Review

Girls on Display

Missionary Myths

Theology in Aisle 7

News

The Father of Faith-Based Diplomacy

Should I Fish or Lay Low?

News

Richard Foster on Leadership

A Life Formed in the Spirit

Review

Debauchery and Crucifixes

News

Quotation Marks

News

Prayer at the Pump

News

Go Figure

News

Going to Bat for His Neighbors

Choosing Celibacy

Wire Story

Sunday Drivers

News

For the Love of Lit

News

The Other Kind of Angels

News

No More Shortcuts

Crouch and Culture

Cultivating Where We're Planted

News

Caesar's Sectarians

News

Healing ORU

Missional Misstep

News

'Dead Sea Scrolls on Stone'

News

Translation Tiff

News

Leaving Lakeland

News

Undue Attention in Algeria

News

The Party of Faith

News

Salvation through Buddhism?

View issue

Our Latest

News

Ghana May Elect Its First Muslim President. Its Christian Majority Is Torn.

Church leaders weigh competency and faith background as the West African nation heads to the polls.

Shamanism in Indonesia

Can Christians practice ‘white knowledge’ to heal the sick and exorcize demons?

Shamanism in Japan

Christians in the country view pastors’ benedictions as powerful spiritual mantras.

Shamanism in Taiwan

In a land teeming with ghosts, is there room for the Holy Spirit to work?

Shamanism in Vietnam

Folk religion has shaped believers’ perceptions of God as a genie in a lamp.

Shamanism in the Philippines

Filipinos’ desire to connect with the supernatural shouldn’t be eradicated, but transformed and redirected toward Christ.

Shamanism in South Korea

Why Christians in the country hold onto trees while praying outdoors.

Shamanism in Thailand

When guardian spirits disrupt river baptisms, how can believers respond?

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube