"Tell me your emotional scars" project

[Statement]

I think that many people have emotional scars caused by their personal problems, and at times turn into hikikomori(*1), or a person in social withdrawal, or commit suicide. In this society, people continue to bear more emotional scars, each one carrying its own story. (According to one theory, there are 3 million hikikomori and 30,000 people who commit suicide each year in Japan.)

     Even those who identify themselves as strong and unhurt people will obviously weaken and be hurt at least once before they age and pass away. It’s always easy to listen to the dominant person’s logic; loud voices reach one’s ears even when they are covered. Instead, I want to listen to the shaky voices that cannot usually be heard. I want to create a device that would prompt the development of such hearing. To be honest, I think the project also attempts to create a society where my weak self would not be left alone to die––because after all, a society where self-identifying strong people set the standards sounds quite uncomfortable.

*1 Hikikomori: A social issue facing Japan wherein people shut themselves in their rooms or homes, isolating themselves from human contact. The reason may be due to modern mental illness such as depression or anxiety disorders and may involve cultural and economic circumstances. Hikikomori has also become a social problem in countries other than Japan in recent years.

––Atsushi Watanabe 

[Commentary]

For this project, Atsushi Watanabe applied the ceramic repairing technique kintsugi(*2) to install a two-dimensional piece using concrete. Watanabe breaks the concrete plates and then repairs them. All of the messages come from anonymous submissions through his website which calls for personal phrases about people’s emotional scars.

*2 Kintsugi: Meaning “golden joinery”, kintsugi is a Japanese art form that repairs broken pottery with lacquer sprinkled with powdered gold, under the understanding that broken pieces make the work more beautiful.

     Based on a piece about his own experience of being a severe hikikomori right before the Great East Japan Earthquake, this art project suggests the sublimation of emotional scars and recovering from one’s mind trappings. He’s currently expanding the project to foreign countries as well. In the adjoining exhibition space, visitors may submit their own accounts of emotional scars. Selected submissions will be created into pieces during the exhibition period. 

Watanabe’s workspace was created into an installation at the gallery. The former special restaurant (illegal adult-entertainment store) venue’s counter was extended to make the workstation. Placed inside the existing alcohol shelf, the video monitor plays the documentary. 

Until then, Watanabe had only solicited for people’s emotional scars online. During the exhibition period, he set up a post box for submissions in the gallery. Some of the submissions of people’s emotional scars were made into pieces there. The process was aired on a TV documentary show.