I brought back with me a few items that remained in my parents’ house, and entrusted them with Hakumoto-san from HOURAINOIE^(*)

I requested her to do embroidery on where stains seeped out on the fabric over time.

Families contain many things and events: as many as the number of families and of its members. There are good things, bad things, and seemingly incoherent variety of events. Nevertheless, not many of those diverse events ever get out of the bounds of a family. At least, I never got to know anything other than things that happened within my own small family I grew up with. Becoming an adult and getting to know various families my friends started to build, only did I start to see these things. I realized that there is no designated method in making our living, but rather it is created through the continuance of connections between people, woven together by time gradually forming its shape.

Days within the reach of my hands are filled with things mostly trivial and rarely wonderful. However, these things are unmistakably happening right here, and they are what constitutes the present. I aspired to find different shapes for those family events that I had in stock so that I could look at them from a different viewpoint. It seemed that the process needed help from somebody else – or another way to put it, it insistingly required something like a story from a different land. If each of us tried to stay who we are individually, it would be inevitable that we will spill and drop some of these things along the way somewhere. Even if we cannot recover all of these things ourselves, if there were someone who salvages and liberates them, then I could at the least call it a sign of hope. Entrusting things to someone and asking for their help can bring changes to limits and boundaries. It is probably not a bad idea to spend some time taking a look at these things with someone else.

*: Incorporated nonprofit organization HOURAINOIE. A type-B workshop facility for continuous employment support located in Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture. They put in practice the welfare work opened to the community, developing activities such as artwork making, confectionery and share farm based on creativity.

All embroidery works are executed by Miche Hakumoto. My sincerest gratitude to her for the minute and delicate stitches she embroidered to completion.

Also, deepest thank you to the members of HOURAINOIE, who provided understanding and cooperation for the work, and to Hana Asuma for supporting the production.