At every step, every gust of wind, I’d like to be able to say, “Now…” and “now” and “now.”

　In the film Wings of Disire, the angels envy human beings for their existence within time. The word “now” may appear to denote a fixed moment, but it seems to be something we only perceive because of motion and flow. When I create exhibitions, I sometimes find myself unsure whether my work is about halting things―like paintings, or people’s footsteps―or setting them in motion. “currents / undercurrents ― Bringing together the endless flow” is a complex exhibition, reflecting the layered nature of Aomori, a place where many things accumulate over time. That complexity resonated with my own questions about the nature of exhibiting, and I found myself naturally drawn into the viewing experience.

　The exhibition is divided into two parts―an earlier and a later phase―and this review is based solely on my visit to the former. Moreover, because of the nature of my work, I tend to focus more on the relationships between works than on the individual pieces themselves, which sometimes makes me feel unqualified to write an exhibition review. But in this case, those very tendencies seemed not only acceptable but even relevant, and I accepted the invitation to write without hesitation. Rather than seeing this as a typical group show, I perceived it as a unique form of expression―one that cannot travel to other venues―that reflects how ACAC, an Artist in Residence (AIR) program, is presently grappling with certain questions.

　Following the artists’ residency period, the exhibition was reconfigured three months after the opening of the first phase, and I imagine the second phase presented a more settled atmosphere. Yet, the somewhat provisional and unpolished state of the first phase―which I saw―seemed to embody not only the spirit of this particular exhibition, but also the broader ambitions of the AIR program itself.

　The ACAC exhibition space is a long, gently curving room about 20 to 30 meters in radius, with a width of 8.8 meters. Upon entering, the far wall is not immediately visible, creating a spatial experience that draws one inward, offering a subtle but unified sense of wholeness. Though it retains the clean proportions of a white cube, the space also allows for a sense of movement and flow―qualities unique to the AIR context. The ceiling is high, and the lack of columns makes it an unusually large single-volume room. One can imagine how artists might be tempted to create large-scale works here. And yet, witnessing how this exhibition expressed fine, nuanced movements through curatorial and spatial choices, I found myself thinking: perhaps this room had been waiting for just this kind of show.

　YAMAKAWA Rick, who was responsible for the exhibition layout, is both an artist―known for works such as tour performances―and a trained architect with experience in spatial design. In a way, he occupies a position opposite to mine: while I transitioned from painting to architecture, he moved from architectural training into artistic practice. I’ve long been intrigued by his ability to combine solid design skills with the fluid, intuitive thinking of an artist.

　For this exhibition, I heard that he acted as a kind of “sounding board” for the curator. Indeed, despite the large number of participating artists, the first phase I visited showed very little in the way of conventional, dominating spatial interventions. Instead, the space was gently segmented with temporary triangular walls―low in height (2,250mm)―which softly connected rather than firmly divided the space. These walls, being relatively low in the context of the exhibition room, felt too modest to be called “walls” in any assertive sense. And yet, because of their form and placement, it was immediately clear that they belonged to the space itself, rather than functioning as artworks. Not quite full stops―more like commas―they served as subtle punctuation marks within the gallery. Each triangular wall responded to the viewer’s gaze: catching it, diverting it, or splitting it. These interventions introduced a visual rhythm that shaped the exhibition’s pace. In retrospect, a straight wall might have asserted itself too strongly in a space defined by such a gentle curve.

　The role of a spatial designer often involves interrupting artists―who may prefer to refine their plans right up until the opening―in order to coordinate and enhance the overall quality of the exhibition. I have no doubt that Yamakawa possesses this ability. But in this show, he seemed to exercise a different kind of strength: a flexibility that refrained from interrupting the exhibition’s natural flow, as if he were participating not as a coordinator, but as another artist. That attitude, I felt, was quietly embodied in the small triangular walls themselves.

　At the entrance to the gallery, IWANE Ai’s projection of the sea was immediately recognized as aerial footage captured by a drone. Though visually striking, it also evoked for me the troubling reality of drones deployed in distant conflict zones. Considering that her work Island in My Mind, Lahaina, displayed further into the space, was inspired by a former military camera repurposed for ceremonial use, I couldn’t help but wonder if her use of the drone likewise carried such layered significance.

　From that moment of unease, I encountered the work of Jumana Emil ABBOUD, an artist from Palestine, and was struck by the openness and freedom of her practice. My initial reaction had been to search her work for political statements―almost reflexively―but I was reminded how problematic it is to expect or impose political postures on artists from oppressed regions. Looking at images from the second phase of the exhibition, it’s clear that Abboud continued to draw inspiration from her stay in Japan, discovering new materials and motifs, and fully engaging in a richly generative artistic process. Taking a moment to reflect once more on the role of the professional artist, I came to realize that the painters – SUZUKI Masaharu and Robin WHITE near the entrance, and the late KUDO Shoji, whose pieces were on display next to Abboud’s work – had all acquired an ability to depict abstractions by engaging with various languages and cultures, and I felt as though their works were communicating with each other across time and place.

　After viewing Abboud’s paintings, I turned around and caught sight of NAKAJIMA Koji’s work framed between two of the triangular walls. A small roof, installed to conceal the lighting, intersected with those walls, gently guiding the viewer’s gaze toward a cluster of modestly scaled works.

　Beneath this softly curving triangular canopy, Nakajima’s Pulse presented a sequence of photographs showing a hand clutching a flower―taken during his journey from Aomori to Sapporo. Engaged in the daily demands of caregiving and housework, Nakajima likely required a certain pragmatism in his practice―doing what could be done when time allowed. Because he installed his work earlier than others, Pulse stood at the entrance as a finely composed piece, anchoring the slightly unsettled rhythm of the overall exhibition.

　His work resonated strongly with the broader experiment of the show and left a lasting impression on me. His other pieces in the exhibition, Pass Through and Snap, were shaped by weather conditions or other people’s schedules. Precisely because of these constraints, his sensitivity to the fleeting and impermanent found profound expression. In the second phase of the exhibition, Pulse was rearranged from a horizontal row into a grid. In that format, the hands clutching flowers began to resemble a cluster of fists―like the closed hand in a game of rock-paper-scissors, or perhaps a series of quiet victory gestures. I sensed in that gesture a forceful will to hold on to a single, passing moment.

　Passing through Nakajima’s series of works, I entered an area where triangular walls were scattered to accommodate smaller pieces. At the end of this spatial rhythm, AONO Fumiaki’s large-scale work had been given ample room to breathe. The articulation of space―precise and generous―demonstrated how expertly the challenging layout of the gallery had been navigated by the exhibition designer.

　Each time I shift a painting in my own exhibition space, I feel something like a sense of “now” beginning to take shape. It’s curious, but I’ve always thought that sensing the “now” is not at odds with movement; rather, it emerges from the tension between motion and stillness. Perhaps it’s when something moves while I remain still―or when I move and notice what remains unmoved―that this awareness of “now” arises. In that sense, “now” is not merely a flow, nor a moment; it’s the relationship between the two. Nakajima’s work captured this idea with remarkable clarity. And when I think of it that way, the contradiction I’ve felt in my own practice starts to make sense. Perhaps, in a broader sense, creating an exhibition means to stop something, and simultaneously to set something else in motion―in order to give form to that elusive “now.” Winter, when the leaves fall, is the best season for birdwatchers. As I walked through ACAC’s rich forest, I found myself reflecting on what it means to sense the present.

Photo by HYAKUTOU Takeshi