Abécédaire: Creolization
“With creolization, nothing disappears, everything is transformed. Everything is transformed, but nothing is diluted. Nothing is utterly and completely erased.” —Édouard Glissant
Miho Hatori
The waters of Ago Bay that November were far murkier than the Caribbean’s emerald green, as if someone had poured oat milk into the sea. I needed a 5 mm wetsuit to dive, and even then, the water was too cold to linger. And yet, beneath the surface, there was a stillness that called to mind Kannazuki—the month when all the gods of Japan have departed for Izumo Taisha Shrine, leaving the world quiet, empty, and still. This inlet is famous for pearl farming. While traveling together, my friend WangShui and I visited one of these pearl farms. The two young farmers were racing against the cold winter ahead.
Unlike other gemstones, pearls are not minerals. They are made by living creatures, and eventually used just as they are—uncut, uncarved. Born from a wound, their layered structure is the result of an accumulation of time. As hundreds of translucent layers build upon one another, light scatters in every direction, producing a soft luminescence that seems to glow from within.
When a foreign substance enters an oyster, the oyster recognizes it as a wound. In defense, it secretes nacre, gradually encasing the intruder, layer upon layer, until a pearl is formed. Without the foreign substance, the pearl cannot form. A completely uninjured oyster makes no pearl. And what is remarkable: the oyster does not expel the intruder. It envelops it, coexists with it, and turns it into layers. Not by erasing the wound, but by carrying it as layers—that is how it becomes light.
When I think about the concept of creolization, I find myself thinking about the mechanism of the pearl.
The small oyster already does this. Why do humans so rarely arrive at the same place?
Perhaps creolization is not a concept, but a way of layering the wound.It is unbearably beautiful, and unbearably fragile. We always live in between.
Miho Hatori is a Japanese vocalist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist based in New York. She is internationally known as a founding member of the band Cibo Matto. Her work begins with the voice—as composer, performer, and storyteller. She has collaborated with artists across experimental and popular music, as well as film and contemporary art. Her practice moves fluidly between music, performance, and visual environments. Hatori’s recent multimedia performance works explore perception, cultural imagination, and the relationship between sound, narrative, and image. Combining experimental composition, voice, text, and visual elements, she creates immersive performances in which sound functions as both musical expression and spatial experience.
