I wanted to build a world where cherry blossoms aren't decoration but witnesses — where mono no aware isn't observed but enacted through the grammar of ruin. The Tofa are among the smallest indigenous groups in Siberia, their language nearly extinct; Istria's coast is limestone that dissolves, that swallows. I fused them to create a woman who speaks a textile dialect that has outlived its listeners. The confession she makes by opening her robe to the sinkhole — that's the image. The void is the only audience patient enough for what she needs to say. — Sable