ART LIVES TORIDE Where Art Is Born

I am now enrolled in the Graduate School of Global Art Practice at Tokyo University of the Arts.

When I was in elementary school, my family hosted an international student. That was the starting point of my interest in the world. In college, I studied international relations and international development. I wanted to do a job where I could use what I learned there and my English skills, so I decided to work as a language specialist for the Ministry of Defense. My job was to interpret and negotiate with embassies.

In the process, I realized that international relations are ultimately about individual to individual relationships. From that experience, I wanted to learn more about cross-cultural communication, so I studied abroad at a school in Denmark. After returning to Japan, I started working as a writer for a web media company specializing in sustainability.

I really enjoyed staying in Southeast Asia to do interviews,
and listening to various people in Japan and abroad, but gradually I began to feel that I wanted to do projects and planning on my own. I wanted to be on the side of the interviewer and the creator, not just the one who hears people’s stories and spreads them.

So first, I went to a beautiful beach in Cambodia and made Shiratama (dumplings made from rice flour) and handed them out to people. I can add various colors, change the shape, and make variations, and at the end of the day, we can eat them and they don’t go to waste. It was a small action, but I enjoyed the reactions I got and decided to keep doing it.

After that, I held workshops in Japan and overseas called “Shiratama de Art,” where we made Shiratama. When a person who has visual defects participated, they told me they enjoyed touching them. When I asked the participants to express themselves 10 years from now with Shiratama, one of them said I am living in the present. It was very novel to me to get so many different reactions.

I have a personality of wanting to try things I have never done before. I have always been uncomfortable drawing pictures, and I don’t think I am a creative person. But that is why I want to try it.

How should I develop the activities I am doing? In order to get a hint of this, I decided to study at a graduate school. I entered graduate school in the spring 2021. I’m really enjoying it because it gives me many different perspectives and opportunities to think.

Right now I’m also involved in “Goat’s Eye,” a team that takes care of goats. At first, I was just thinking that I could get involved with various students and staff members if I joined . When I actually got involved, I found that the range of activities was very broad. I could get involved naturally. I continue to be in the team because I can experience something through nurturing and taking care of something.

In September 2021, we held a Goat’s Eye Exhibition at “Taiken Bijutsuba VIVA” in Atre Toride, and I presented a work called “Yagi no Yumeee” (Goat’s Dream). I made Ema (votive picture tablet) out of paper made of 100% vegetables and asked participants to write their dreams on it. When fed to goats, the dreams are digested by the goats, and the feces is turned into compost and returned to the soil. This work is based on the theme of circulation.

I have always loved to eat. Partly to satisfy my appetite, but also because the human body is made up of the food we eat. Eating is the root of everything.
I believe that spending time eating together is the same thing, and that eating something that someone else has made for you is like eating a part of that person, or taking in a part of that person. It is an act that blurs the boundary between oneself and others. I hope to one day create a place where people can think about and practice the act of “eating” in a natural way.

As a first step, I grew soybeans in a field on the Toride campus, which are easy to grow and can be processed into a variety of foods. Growing something is fun, you can see changes and discover new things. I would like to grow more of the food I eat myself.