Depicting life around us – is it possible to continue updating our vision?

Complex and diverse worlds exist in the scenery and everyday life that is always around us. However, once you become accustomed to things being there, they merely become part of the act of passing by, or of the landscape. Feeling curiosity for the things and ideas we take for granted leads to the extraction of everyday fragments that have become so habitual we have lost sight of them; and when these fragments are presented as something we can share with others, we notice again that our everyday lives are full of surprise and discovery. A willingness to find new interpretations and possibilities in people’s lives and the land is a necessary perspective for developing art projects that penetrate the community.

What are the methods for gathering fragments of the everyday and portraying them in a shareable form? What is the process to decipher these fragments and create new things and ideas? We discuss such questions with guests Miho Tominaga and Takahito Ito (tomito architecture) as well as Kana Ohashi. In their work our guests persistently attempt to capture fragments of today’s society based on the “mini culture” that emerges from people’s daily activities.

How have our guests tried to portray daily life and tackle new challenges in their work to date? We discuss developments to come with an eye on the “now”, and uncover approaches and attitudes common to our two sets of guests.

Image: Map of events/ from Okanomachi Terakoya House CASACO (tomito.jp)