The Snake Path at Nanatsugama

Anne Graham had the challenging task of creating a major community artwork for the Nanatsugama Fishing Park, a nature reserve in an area famous for its wild, scenic beauty – and for its ancient serpent legend. Graham designed a snake-shaped walkway that sinuously wound around a hillside terminating in a cluster of granite rocks with polished flat tops – a place for meditation, viewing and picnics. Seventy tiled panels were designed by groups drawn from local communities and further afield and then, in a mammoth community workshop attracting well over 1,000 people, assembled and inserted into the walkway. The importance of the project to the community was evident in the formal blessing by village elders followed by an enactment of the serpent legend and the provision of local food and delicacies such as sake in bamboo flasks for all the participants.