I had published a series of paintings using the photographs of skies and clouds I took as their bases, and on which I overlaid, daubed and polished up "documents and memories". As I received grants from two foundations in 2009, I moved my base to Switzerland/Germany, and then about a year and a half later, I experienced a profound turning point in my life—the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I had never spent so long watching the news and videos posted on the net with zeal and horror. I just couldn't keep my eyes off my laptop screen. This experience completely changed my world. Violent and murky streams were swallowing up everything in sight, while invisible substances were bubbling to the fore. I felt the fear to be taken in, and yet felt that chaotic energy of the world was persuading me to take a step forward, into the future.

There had been a sure-footed path leading to the world we had been dreaming of. At least that's how I used to feel, but I saw the gilded veneer of that path peeling away from afar, the ground drying up and cracking, and saw the new world showing its pale face from underneath. And it started to eject the world's suppressed sediment to slowly make a giant stream. The stream kept growing wider and stronger, and it made all of us feel like we were being washed away uncontrollably, helplessly.

Back to my daily life, everything around me looked different. I just couldn't look at things as they used to be, and consequently, I became interested in the history and evolution of the many things that populate our lives. One day, I encountered an old damask bed sheet in an antique shop in Switzerland. I could tell that it originally came from the Far East, and during the course of the slow journey across the Silk Road toward Western Europe, it had been passed through the hands of people in many countries, successively dyed in the respective colors of each new home. It was well woven and somehow, gave me a feeling of familiarity. As I was touching and examining its frays and seams, I felt the palpable bustle and lingering warmth imbued by each of its previous owners. I decided to start working on a new series using these damask sheets. While photography is documentary evidence of each particular moment in which the object and subject once shared, the damask bed sheet is story itself. People usually spend one third of their lives in beds, and these bed sheets had once been used as bed coverings. Each of them provoked me to think of the histories of their travels all along the Silk Road, and by painting on their floral patterns, I updated their stories that previous owners had woven within each threads, of warp and weft. I deepened my interest in documentation and memory through the production of this series.

After I came back to Japan in 2015, I started to shift my style from prepared studio works to live performances, in which I ventured to venues to create uninhibited work on-site. This shift was triggered, at least in part, by the atmosphere of I found in my new home in the Noge/Yokohama area, as well as the lifestyles of the musicians I met. But at the same time, the shift was also compelled because I had come to realize that live performance is one of the most effective ways of sharing documentation and memory with others at the same moment and place, and also came to believe profoundly that the works and life of an artist could not be talked about separately—I was crossing the Rubicon in a way.

Through all my activities, now I can clearly feel the water I scoop, dripping down through my hands. I suppose we always desire more water than we can actually hold. But there is no use crying over spilt water. If you’re still thirsty, you can always dip into the wellspring again. What’s important is that we continue tirelessly searching for new water sources to whet our creative palates.

KARASU-TEI (art performance duo)