Participated in Artist in Artist in Residence Program 2024 “SPINNING SCAPES”

I have loved painting ever since I was little. I began painting plants, simply because I liked their shapes. I was also interested in the symbolic meanings of things like the flower and plant patterns found on various folk crafts and clothing, and the fruits and seeds that appear in folktales and other stories. Over time, I became more and more interested in both plants themselves and the things around them.

I first encountered the cultural practices of gathering and preserving wild nuts and vegetables as a university student living in Yamagata. I grew to enjoy hearing how the local people used such plants in their daily lives, what plants revealed about their ways of life, and their personal stories. My current style stems from my initial attempts to depict these things in my paintings as a means of recording them.

I was interested in the various traditional food cultures, uses of medicinal herbs, and crafts (dyeing, knitting, and so on) across different regions, particularly those practices associated with ‘women’s work’. In each place, I have had encounters that I have been inspired to paint. Sometimes my paintings even superimpose the figures of the people who live in those places over the plants, or vice versa.

I have also become interested in the ‘roots’ of plants, as it were: for example, when I encounter the same type of plant in different places, I think about the differences and similarities between the two plants, and where each of those differences or similarities comes from. While I do think about the deep history of such things, I also cherish these small, personal encounters that were made possible only because I happened to be visiting that place at that time.

When I was a university student, I had the chance to accompany TSUJI Kei, a textile artist who was my teacher at the time, to do maintenance work on one of his pieces at ACAC. I only stayed at ACAC for one day, but ever since then I have been fascinated by its residence programmes. At that time, there were artists from Japan and India staying there, and I remember how inspiring it was to catch glimpses of them working. I found it to be a very charming place, surrounded by nature, with spaces and facilities which would allow me to immerse myself in my art while living alongside other artists from Japan and around the world.

The application period was taking place just as I was beginning research and production for a work on the topic of seeds carried and dispersed by birds, so I thought that ACAC would be an especially good place for observing wild birds while staying in a single location. I had also been considering doing a residency overseas, so I was already looking forward to interacting with people from different backgrounds. And I felt that the theme of ‘SPINNING SCAPES’, of spinning and weaving the world, was also connected to the things that I wanted to look into, namely migratory birds and the seeds that they carry around with them from place to place.

First, I observed many types of birds while staying at ACAC. From the window of my room in the Residential Hall, I could see woodpeckers with red feathers. When walking in the forest, I would listen carefully for the sounds of green woodpeckers drumming their bills against the trees, and go searching after them. Walking together with KUDO Masayoshi, who knows a lot about birds, I felt my understanding and my ability to distinguish between different bird species improving little by little. Mr. Kudo could immediately tell the type of bird by its call alone, so whenever I – still very much an amateur – saw a bird that I did not know, he would take out his field guide and teach me.

I also had a good time sitting under a snowbell tree near the parking lot with my binoculars, gazing at a titmouse as it hoarded food for winter. I would chase after and sketch birds that had picked up nuts and flown off to hide them for safe keeping. Just having the time to focus like this was itself a real luxury; I felt like I had gone back to my student days.

I also took some short trips to visit places like Lake Towada, Oirase Gorge, Tsuruta Town and Hiranai Town. I learnt how the local forests grew out of the seeds of hackberry fruits that were eaten by woodpeckers, and heard how tiny wrens make their nests in the moss around Oirase Gorge.

Now and then I would get into a canoe and follow the waterfowl around, which was a valuable experience as it gave me a glimpse of the world from their perspective. I would also listen to little anecdotes about birds in people’s daily lives, like the story of a bird on a farm in Hiranai Town who built a nest out of the hairs that it plucked from the farmer’s dog. As I travelled around, I heard and saw such interactions, not only between birds and plants, but between birds and all kinds of living things, including people.

The piece that I ended up painting, The Silent Trade Between Living Things, explores the grand cycles of nature and the relationships between living things, revealed to me during my residency through my observations of the small traces that birds had left on the surrounding environment. The process leading up to the creation of this large-scale work began with a series of charcoal sketches. I searched for these small traces left behind by birds and other living things, including bird droppings and pellets, and even anecdotes from people. Then I drew enlarged versions of these traces on sheet after sheet of charcoal paper.

I wanted to try making something that would take full advantage of ACAC’s capacious, high-ceilinged architecture, something that would be too big for me to handle physically on my own. I painted the piece on a large sheet of paper which I laid out flat on the floor of the exhibition space. I moved around a lot as I painted, sometimes climbing onto a scaffold to look down at the painting from above, or bringing my face in close to the paper without really noticing. Curator SETOU Tomo told me that watching me shoot back and forth across the painting was like watching a performance, so now I am more conscious of my movements while I paint. I of course did a lot of research on birds, plants, and the local area before getting started on the painting, but this was something I discovered after I had begun the painting process.

I am glad that I was able to participate in this programme together with Maggie CHU, YAHATA Aki, and Béatrice DIDIER – three artists who all come from different backgrounds. They let me observe their creative processes, came birdwatching with me, and had long chats with me in front of their finished works. I felt that I could really see the connections that ran through all our works, connections that resulted precisely from all of us working at the same time together in the same place.

Even though each of us was busy with our own production and research during the day, we spent the evenings eating and hanging out together. We also got a full taste of Aomori, with the artists and staff travelling together to local hot springs at the beginning of the residency and after the start of the exhibition period, as well as to Goshogawara City, Towada City, aquariums, and even some live shows. The local people also took good care of us, showing us to secret hot springs apparently unknown to outsiders. I even got to visit and talk with a farmer in Hiranai Town who helped me during an exhibition I did in Aomori five years earlier.

Finally, throughout the residency, the staff members were always there to help me with my research. It was very reassuring to have people working alongside me as I put my exhibition together.

When we finally exhibited our finished works, I felt a natural and seamless connection between the pieces of all four artists. At dinner, we even read to each other from texts written by guest judge KONDO Ryosuke. I think that our staying in Aomori together at the same time gave us something in common and helped each of us influence each other’s work. I gain new insights every time that I am able to live alongside fellow artists as we share our works, our creative processes, and the experience of putting together a group exhibition. I felt the same about this residency, too, and I think it turned out to be a spectacular exhibition, with all the works complementing one another.

It was a great experience having a place to stay and conduct research in the local area while also being able to focus on my creative work. Each time I am given such opportunities, I am reminded to go back to the basics of just observing and painting (even though the time I can devote to this always varies). I hope to continue doing so in various new places.

From this spring and into the summer, I plan to travel around Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Then, starting this summer, I will participate in a six-month-long residency in New Zealand, so I will be moving around a lot this year. As I travel around listening to stories about local vegetation and traditional ways of life, I hope to also ask about media that I am interested in, such as paper-making and pottery, in order to investigate their similarities and differences from place to place, as well as their historical connections.

I also want to continue my observations of what is revealed through the relationship between birds and plants. New Zealand in particular is known for its birds. As someone who has travelled to many different places, I have noticed some commonalities between the movement of seeds – one of my themes for this residency – and the movement of people. I want to continue exploring this larger theme of ‘movement’.

I was told that bears are always being spotted in the area, but I did not put on any bear bells because they would scare away the birds as well as the bears. So I was usually pretty nervous when I was in the forest.

One time, Béatrice and I went out into the forest in the early morning. We saw animal prints in the snow, and I told her we should go back, but she was thrilled. She seemed to be more in touch with nature than I was. It was a fun and refreshing experience. As she told me about the forests in Europe, I felt like our time walking together was a work of art in itself, as if I was stepping into a performance.

Translation: Penguin Translation
*Interview conducted in May 2026.