Organizer: Ezoe Memorial Recruit Foundation

Kudan-Sakaue KS Bldg. Ground Floor　Kudan-Kita 1-14-6, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Risa Ueno/
Kentaro Okumura/
Sao Ohtake/
Dann Kurauchi
Hisako Nakaoka/
Neo Tomita/
Maya Masuda/
Ye Zijing

“Return, Observe” ———

It is our practice of setting out from Japan as a place and a moment in time, observing and participating in other lands, and eventually turning back to reexamine the point of departure. The trajectory of this movement is a continual oscillation between leaving and returning. This exhibition has been conceived as an interim report on that process.

We the participating artists, who have deepened their thinking and expression within diverse cultures and systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and elsewhere, each bring their own methods and concerns. To reconsider “Japan” as our starting point is not only to question our own roots, but also to critically reexamine the current art scene and the institutions of art education.

The “return” addressed here goes beyond simple homecoming or nostalgia; it extends to memory, institutions, and even the grammar of narratives, as a renewed connection with domains that are constantly reshaped through interpretation and experience. And to “observe”, in this sense, is a gaze that reconfigures change—through art, we incessantly generate “new points of departure.”