【statement】

“This year, I returned to Brazil for the first time since I started creating artworks.
The trip was an opportunity for me to look at my hometown from a new perspective.

Sao Paulo, where I spent my childhood, was a sea of noise with no definite meaning, a mixture of countless sounds, colors, smells, and signs of people.
Culture, class, history, hope, despair, and everything else have been jumbled together, without outline or form, and simply blended into the city. The chaos seemed to overlap somewhat with the anxiety I felt when I came to Japan as an immigrant and almost lost the outline of who I am after being exposed to new culture and values. Through my journey, as I mixed various memories, I gradually began to understand what I had been attracted to and why.

Maebashi City in Gunma Prefecture, the location of this exhibition, is also the city where I spent my high school years before moving to Tokyo.
At that time, I spent my time skateboarding with friends and chatting about nothing important in a corner of the shopping street. Now, a new culture is gradually emerging here, and a somewhat new atmosphere is beginning to flow. Meanwhile there are moments when I feel as if there is some kind of crazy buzz lurking in this quietness of the
town.

Memories and the present, decline and rebirth, stillness and buzz.
When I am in this city, I get a strange feeling of being at the crossroads of many things, somewhat similar to the air of Sao Paulo.

The production period, during which many memories and thoughts intersected, was a time that made me rethink where I am now and where I came from.”