From artist interviews
Aiko Miyanaga
For me, the richness of life is found in everyday life. What I feel and discover in my daily life isconnected to my work. In the past, my daily life and art were separated, and I was immersed
in art which was separated from my daily life. That's why I called myself an art Sherman, and I
thought it was a good like that.

When I raise my child, I'm starting to realize that the various

things I experience will make my creations sparkle more and more.
About the small exhibition room and child's drawing
I brought in a drawing my daughter, or rather, a scribble on an empty cookie box. I showed thisat online meeting where we were talking about the richness in life. My daughter drew a picture
on a box of a bomb falling on a house, and then "Putin" and "Zelensky" were written. When I
looked at it, I felt sadness and was a little startled. I realized that there is such a war scene inchildren’s life, and that was the daily life of children today. My daughter naturally let us know
the reality that we are making them experience such things.
When I opened the box, there was a weather forecast drawn inside. That was just anotherscene of the TV news, and her image of weather forecast, such as rain or sunshine were drawn
inside the box. When I saw it, I was very impressed that things happening around the world
are very familiar to my daughter and affecting her. At the same time, I was impressed thatchildren have the ability to learn. Children teach us what is going on around the world.

Even

now, there is a war going on somewhere in the world, but we cannot let our mind stay there,
and here we are, living in a different part of the world.

I thought this picture or a graffiti makeus realize that. And it teaches me things like everyday observations that leads to my work. It’s
strange to say so, but I feel the richness in life through such discoveries and a scene that mydaughter teaches me in everyday life.
Small exhibition room: a globe and PET bottles
A child's discoveries change from moment to moment. Her minds are always wavering, and I
really feel that they are living while learning. This time, I brought in some of my favorite thingsand something “less than a work”: globes, plastic bottles, a piece of glass and bricks.
They are all connected, and through these objects, I wanted to show how I experience the earth.
It's exaggerating to say so, but it's important to be able to experience that grand scale in a very
everyday life.

This is a globe I have at home.

I often look at it with my daughter and talkabout the places we've been to. It is an old Showa period globe, and the notation of country
name is different from now such as the Soviet Union.
The plastic bottles are just PET bottles at a first glance, but I’ve been taken good care of them.
They are the PET bottles which I brought back from 5000m altitude in the Atacama Desert in

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Chile, and when I came down to about 2500m altitude, they were crumpled up. I brought themhome, but just thinking about the PET bottle went around the world and being in my house,
this fact just makes me enchanted. I think this is the kind of richness in life.

Well, it's not ascience experiment, so it's not important whether there is evidence or not, but it's importantand rich to be able to think and to imagine.
About 《message 2019/2021/2022》, 《suitcase "pieces of ocean"》, and 《birthday》
Last year, I exhibited a message bottle work titled "message" which I wanted to exhibit again
this year because the crystal was grown only in Shiseido’s space. In my mind, this work is likea clock. Rather than showing the beauty of the crystallization, I wanted to show the work ischanging little by little during these three years.
In addition, I made two other works this year relating Shiseido's 150th anniversary.

One ofthem is the work of a suitcase. The key point of this work is that Shiseido’s location wasconnected to the sea long time ago.

It is interesting to imagine that Ginza used to be

surrounded by the sea, and the fact that the Shiseido Gallery is in the basement also reminds
me of that.

I feel this gallery and Shiseido exist in the continuation of old Ginza so I wanted

to put in a suitcase something connecting to the sea, a story based on it. If you look closely,
you can see that there are several motifs that Shiseido cherishes.
We live on the ground, but I’m always conscious of the fact that various things change when
position changes, and I try to be flexible about it. That's why I'm interested in PET bottles fromthe 5,000m altitude, and I'm also interested in this place, where used to be the sea, and cameup with the idea of creating a work using the underground soil of Ginza. I happened to hear that
there was construction going on Hanatsubaki-dori, and they were just digging up, so I asked
them to provide me with some soil. At this point, I haven't decided what to do with the final
form yet, but I wanted to use this soil to make glass. This time I'm exhibiting the experimental
stage of glass. Even if it's not in a nice form, I can see the time far away and feel like I can go
to meet that era, and I like it.
In the same way, there were bricks with the soil they provided me.

I thought it would be niceif I could do something with those bricks. I don't know how certain, but when I think about thehistory that Ginza had a brick townscape in the past, these bricks are of old Ginza. Some of thebricks were mixed with a large stone, and I imagined that they came from those years when
they were not manufactured in well-organized condition. Just to imagine that, I could beenriched.

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What we brought from the studio
Last time, we made an exhibition in which we selected the art works from Shiseido’s art
collection, and this time we tried to organize an exhibition that includes collaboration withvarious people. At the meeting, when we were discussing about making a room in the gallery,
the idea of a balcony came up, and I remember that the idea developed to “inside and outside.”
As for the “inside and outside,” we always gain a lot from doing fieldwork outside in the
production of our artworks, so we thought it would be better to look for something outside thatwould give us richness.
We looked for places and things that have been exposed outside the studio, things that wereused in the past but have been neglected for a long time and blended into the naturalenvironment, soil that has been accidentally adhered due to rain and wind, and places whereplants that normally wouldn't grow. So, what we found this time were sandbags from thosenaturalized plants were growing, and wooden banco that were a little rotten, bricks and blockwith moss growing on them.
About "Trifolium repens"This time, we videotaped clover (which scientific name is Trifolium repens) and used it as amaterial to create a large-scale work using four panels. We videotaped the flowers blooming
along the river. In fact, each of the four panels came from a separate image, and we tried tomake them look as they are connected. When thinking about the balance between carving andthe image, we talked together to create the same atmosphere as much as possible.
We chose clover this time, and last year we also chose the naturalized plant. More than 100
years ago, clover was used as a cushioning material in the packaging of porcelain that wasshipped from the Netherlands to Nagasaki. This plant is called Shirotsume-gusa (white packing
grass), which is quite arbitrary, and can be seen all over Japan now. It is said that there arethousands of species of naturalized plants in Japan today, and although they can be foundeverywhere, there is a reason why they came from outside. Moreover, naturalization occurs with
the intervention of human, and there might also be a story behind. We explore that and find
one point to another in our own way and applying it to our own work.
Process leading up to the exhibition
Tsubaki-kai exhibition is different from our usual exhibitions. For example, last year’s exhibition
was quite an acrobatic and tense work to incorporate the Shiseido's art collection into our groupexhibition, but this time, we had discussions, and in addition to that, we created works while
collaborating with others who have different perspectives. Moreover, unlike other groupexhibitions, Tsubaki-kai exhibitions make us feels more like we are discussing spatially rather

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than discussing verbally.

In fact, I hardly met other members (off-line) before the exhibition.

We wondered how we can organize a group exhibition in such a situation, but when it wascompleted, it turned out to be an exhibition that resonated with each other. It's not about words,
but the works resonate with each other in a different way. We tried to recognize through ourbody, we became more conscious with each other and tried to coexisted to make it better. For
example, in the larger room, the first work was［mé］’s video work of the river with many carspassing on the bridge. It came to our attention, and we remembered that we went to videotape
the naturalized plants growing on the bank of the river. We were not forced or required to thinkso, but we felt the atmosphere of being close and incorporated into our work. I think that's whatmakes Tsubaki-kai so interesting, and I feel like I'm finally starting to enjoy it.
About “less than a work”
The word “less than a work” is also used when we are having discussions, and it doesn’t meanthat we create a nice pedestal, frame it beautifully, or hang it on the wall beautifully. We werestrongly conscious about our approach of one step before the completion of the artwork. Theremay be a resonance that are created with every artist’s completed works, but rather, we wanted
to show what was born in the process of toward completion. It seems that we were aiming fora condition where works, materials, things, etc. were all placed equally.
Correspondence with Anna Tsing
We wanted to ask Anna Tsing for e-mail correspondence because we read her book “Matsutake".
It was our first experience to obtain such information. Through “Matsutake,” we could learn
about the Anthropocene, capitalism, how people have been moved by plants, how plants havebeen incorporated into society, and various cultures and lifestyles have been created by it. When
we thought that plants and vegetables have stories behind the lives of the people depicted in“Matsutake,” the way we see the world has changed. It is difficult to spontaneously change theway we look at things, but if there is an external pressure or stimulus, maybe your thoughts
will change. The book on “Matsutake” and Anna Tsing's words gave us the opportunity to change
the way we see any living things around us, and we think that was the big thing.
Anna Tsing talks about how to perceive the world with the theme on matsutake mushrooms,
and what we are trying to do with naturalized plants also is to captures how nature has beenclosely related to people and social conditions. In that sense, the "Matsutake" book is verystimulating, and we wanted to share our thoughts and the questions and that arose during our
production process as a form of communication. She sent us a wonderful e-mail, saying not only
about matsutake mushrooms, but about various geological situations that are happening aroundthe world, so we hope to continue this correspondence.

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Internal[mé]“Less than a work” and richness
At last year's exhibition, we (Tsubaki-kai artists) were surprisingly aware that there was a kindof telepathic communication that didn't use specific words or meaning. After Nakamura’s wall
was built, Sugito responded to it by accepting, and from then on, communication began notwith words, but with actions and gestures. This means that the body was not directly involved,
and we communicated without words and were reading the room.
When we re-thought about the Corona virus situation, the things we had planned were steadily
disappearing, and it was no longer about making something with a specific goal in mind. When
there was no exhibition or event as a goal to create artworks, what artists were doing? What
did you create when you were deprived of communicating with people through your work?
Something you make was “less than a work”? When the specific goals were taken away, we cansay that artists were present in a special site-specific space to communicate. We questioned
what were we trying to create before completing the works for exhibition when we couldn’t goout? Then We talked about exhibiting those works we can only see under this condition.
When we were talking about that, Sugito brought an old cover photograph of Hanatsubaki
magazine.

It was a photograph of a wonderful living room in the 50s. By looking at thephotograph, we questioned “what is the richness in life?”

All kinds of values have justoverturned due to the Corona virus, and when we thought about affluence, it was very freshfor us to think about the “richness in life.”
Until now, we've been presenting works under various pressures, such as whether I must show
it in a certain way or whether we must add sone nice words to it. However, through discussions
and the installing process this time, we learned that we can communicate well enough with“less than a work,” and we wanted to believe in it. In fact, I felt that the richness lies in being
able to share feelings that cannot be expressed in words, without being bound by words ormeanings.
This exhibition, we felt as if we had come to a friend's house so we thought this kind of feeling,richness, and “less than a work” were connected.
What we brought from the studio
We brought objects from the place where our work is born or where we think about it or become
absent-minded. These chairs we've been sitting on for about 10 years. We wanted to bring insomething that we use daily, something that we use when we relax or to have meetings there.
The carpet was used when we had the exhibition in this gallery “Unreliable Reality – The Whereof This World” in 2014. We kept it in our storage. We wanted to take this opportunity to put ithere again, and we thought about what other artists would do if we brought it.
When we were thinking about this space, the keyword "riverbed" came up, and we showed thevideo of a riverbed where we often go. It is a meaningless place, or not a place where you had
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developed into a discussion about a “vacant lot”, “inside and outside”, and “boundary”. We had
an outdoor light, so we decided to bring it.

We wondered what would happen, how other artists

would react, and try to interpret it if we brought it here. Regarding the carpets and furniture,
we were also interested in how everyone would perceive them.
Exhibiting 《Acrylic Gas》 pieces are our artworks, but they can be said that they are “less thana work.” We don’t know how the works look like when they are finished. They solidified during
the process of change. There are a lot of these in our studio, so we just brought them. They
are still in the production stage. After we take it out of the mold, we check, sand, and retouch
to take away the dust, but we haven't done that yet. We brought them from the studio as they
were hung on the wall for checking.
Image of the river
There is a river near our studio where we go to daze, and we go there once or twice a week.
The bridge is over the big river, and it's not even a scenic spot. It's a place like a void in thesuburbs. That is the scenery we do not know whether we are consciously seeing it or not.
However, when we showed this image of the river to the other artists at the meeting, thereaction was good. So, we decided to record this scenery, and we asked Kenji Shiratori toparticipate in the video shooting. He is a photographer and is totally blind, and we asked him tohave a dialogue with this scenry.
The reason why we asked Shiratori was that when we were talking with him, he suddenly said,"I can talk to things," and when we asked him to talk with a stone nearby, he was really able to
do it. We felt like Shiratori taught us that the words can become a landscape, and they were
not the words we use all the time. By seeing Shiratori having a dialogue with such a scenery,
we thought we would be able to capture the scenery ourselves and convey it to others.
We usually get the meaning from what we see．Shiratori communicates with words because heis blind, and the words Shiratori uses seem to express a different meaning from the words weuse.
His words are something that frees you from the meaning and uses unexpected expression.
He also says things naturally that we're too embarrassed to say. Listening to his words whilelooking at the scenery with him, we felt like we were enriched, and we felt like we were freed
from stress, and we needed that. Because of the current closed social condition and ourpsychological state, Shiratori let us hear something free from meaning with sound and rhythm
like music of the atmosphere. Such feeling matched the scenery of the river, and we were able
to spend a rich time. We hope it will be conveyed in this exhibition, even if only a little.

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InternalRyuji Nakamura
About 《Rope》
When we were discussing "the richness of life" at the meeting, [mé] showed us a video, and inthat video there was a bridge and cars in the distance, and a large space in front of it. I liked
the blankness of the space and the distance of it, and when I thought about the richness in life,
I felt that blankness was very important especially after COVID-19. In this exhibition, I wanted
to express richness through blankness of space.
In the last year’s exhibition, I thought about creating a relationship between the work and theviewer by putting up a wall. Sugito intervened and added another wall to create a chain ofrelationships. I thought it created a good situation for the relationships between the six artists,
so I thought it would be nice to have something to replace it this time and hoped that
relationship would be born. In this way, I thought that I could create a space and relationships
by using a rope.
This time, I made the rope with the image of a barrier that prevents people from touching theartworks as that are often used in the museum. This creates a distance between the viewer andthe work, and I wondered if I could create a relationship within that. If there is a barrier, it's asign that you can't go beyond, but it's not a true barrier, so it's up to the viewer to decide
whether to cross it. If the rope is low, people may or may not cross over. I thought that viewers
will be able to appreciate in such a way that they can think for themselves how they perceive
the rope.
At first, I wondered if the relationship with the artist would be a little more subtle, but this time,
Sugito intervened directly. In this rope work, the corner part of the large exhibition room is very
important, and Sugito applied his idea for the structure of that part, and I thought that thecorner part became Sugito’s work. It was a rich experience for me to collaborate with Sugito.
About 《Hose》
This time, I made a work using a household water hose. The motif is a hose that was on theveranda of my workplace, but when it hangs over the water faucet, I thought the shape of thehose created by the elasticity and gravity was interesting. So, using a hose, I made these works
with the idea that I could find richness in the shape created by elasticity. This time, we’re also
exhibiting daily necessities that we brought from home and work, and I was wondering if I could
make something as an extension of that, and this is the idea that came out of it. During themeeting, we were talking about “less than a work,” and I thought that it was further
strengthened by bringing in daily necessities. I thought the boundaries are melting between
artwork and daily necessities, whose work from where to where, rather than exposing eachother's works and claiming, and it’s good to mingle with each other so I placed my hose works
in various places.

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What I brought from the studioi
In the small exhibition room, along with the hose work, there is a bentwood chair and a pottedaloe plant. The bentwood chair is also made by the elasticity of the wood and has a structurewith curves, and the aloe has a unique curve. I would like viewers to connect with the shapesof the hose and compare.

Futoshi Miyagi
Both "Banner (from A Japanese Nightingale and Serenade)" and "Writing a Letter" are sequels
to last year's work, or rather, they are developments from that work. Last year's work was asmall installation with letter paper, fountain pens and perfume bottles, and was an installationof things that were kept in a state of hesitation while writing a letter to someone. In this year‘sworks, there is a video of one of the main characters finally starting to write a letter, and she iswriting a memory of when she and the other party once played and sang a Serenade together
under a cherry tree. So, the lyrics of Schubert's Serenade are embroidered on the banner. The
pattern of the cherry blossoms on it, which is also mentioned in the video, is based on the covermotif of the early 1900s novel by Onoto Watanna called "Japanese Nightingale" that the two ofthem were reading. Also, I wanted to show the relationship between the two characters andalso to connect with Nakamura's rope, I embroidered the letters by twisting two types of gold
thread.
The video was shot in a small exhibition room, and the tablecloth that was spread over the tablein the video was used as the material of the banner, and at the end of the video, the ash of thecigarette drips down, and if you look closely, you can see a little burnt marks on the banner.
Conversation with Sissel Tolaas
In last year's small installation, I used a bottle of Shiseido's old perfume "Serenade," which has
the same name as Schubert's song, so I exhibited it. The bottle was kept in Shiseido’s Corporate
Museum, but I heard that there was no record of incense tone. My imagination was greatly
stimulated, and I wondered what kind of smell it was, and what kind of smell it emitted in thewartime environment. I was very interested in that. When I wanted to think about it a little
further, I thought of Sissel, who is a smell researcher and artist. I wanted to have a conversation
with her.
There is a magazine called "Monoculture" published in Berlin, and each issue features one
writer/artist. Sissel’s issue had a strange design that gave off the smell of a man being nervous,
the impression of it was quite strong, so I remembered for a long time.
I knew that she is very scientific and seriously thinking about education as well, but apart from
that, I thought that there was a personal part to her approach. During the conversation, we
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talked that now we can't travel because of the Corona virus. She told us that she can relax byplacing the smells in her room which she has collected during her trip in various places.

That

way she is placing her memories of the trip in her own environment. I've never done it, but I
really sympathize with it. Somehow, I incorporated such narrative into my video work.
Last year's and this year's works are based on my novel "Ikuyo", in which two women spend
their nights together in Tokyo listening to music and etc. during the Pacific War. In the novel,
Shiseido's Serenade appears as the two's favorite perfume. I don't know the smell of Serenade,and I don’t know the smell of the war time. For example, landscapes can be understood bylooking at photographs and records, but smells are hard to imagine even if there is a written
record, and that is what started my interest.
About the river photographs
At the first meeting, [mé] showed us a video of the river, and it was very impressive and I felt
a sense of familiarity. I wondered why, and I remembered that I used to go to the nearby
Tamagawa River and take pictures. When I looked at those pictures, I could see a similarity
with the pictures of the river at night. After that, Nakamura proposed his idea of a rope, and I
went to see the river again while being conscious of something like a boundary. Then, I noticed
that there were many situations where it was impossible to reach the river due to fences underconstruction and overgrown grass, and I thought it was very interesting. These photographs
may not be directly related to my work, but they were born in that flow, so I show them in thesmaller room.
About the choice of the location
Last year, I installed the works on the mezzanine, but when it started, I felt envious of the large
room, and it had been better if there was a little more interaction. This time, from the beginning,
we knew that we create a smaller exhibition room like a living room, so I wanted to make useof the space and install my works nearby. If you look at the video, you can easily see that it wasfilmed in the smaller room, so I used this wall close to the smaller room.
I had been thinking about where to shoot the video for my work for a long time, and I couldn't
decide at all until the last minute. When I saw almost everything was installed in the smallerroom, I was convinced right away that I should shoot here. This feeling was very fresh, so I
shot it as soon as the space was completed. Looking at the space becoming more and more
comfortable was also a fresh feeling.
This year's exhibition has a completely different atmosphere from last year's, and it’s really agroup exhibition where you can see how each artist presents their work.

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Hiroshi Sugito
Life is hectic and we don't have enough time to look at things one by one. I feel that my mentality
to look at things is getting lukewarm year by year. For example, Ueno Park has a zoo, artmuseums, coffee shops, and a university. If you go down to the train station, there is Ameyoko,
and wherever you go, it’s crowded with people and lot of information. Such landscape is difficult
to paint as it is. That's why everyone is narrowing down their focus to what they're interested
in and thin out other information to live. I don't know if that's the sadness of people today.
About mango seeds
After eating mangoes, I collect the washed, bleached, and dried seeds.
It's a mystery to me too. It is an act that is done without reason or purpose. I think such silly
act is really a luxury and happiness. If I were to move to a mountain hut, the first thing I would
put in my room would be those mango seeds rather than my own artwork. Doesn't that makeyou imagine a happier life? My own artwork is surprisingly not that important, so even if I throw
it away, I can make it again. I think that important things cannot be created by yourself but can
only be obtained from those created by others. On the contrary, I can't make it myself, so I
spend my whole life to try to make it. After all, things that are important to others will remain.
Depending on the era, some things are thrown away, while others are handed down fromgeneration to generation at the level of living. I want art to be like that."
From "Contemplation of Modern Life", Hanatsubaki magazine No.830 150th Anniversary Issue
2022*The interview video is posted on the Shiseido Gallery website.

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