About the artwork

My impression when I first walked around Tokamachi was that, although there wasn’t anything particularly special about it, it had the atmosphere of a special town. I did not understand why at the time. A month later I walked around Tokamachi again. There was a lot of snow on the ground. Probably because the snow covered the details, I noticed that there were many interesting features, things like the spaces between houses, the position of the windows, and the unusual warehouses. All these, I thought, must be what makes for the unique atmosphere. Then I selected one hundred interesting places, investigated their stories, and put these stories on paper chopstick envelopes and on seals attached to soft drink cans. The kind of fun feeling a person would have sitting down in a restaurant and noticing that the chopstick envelope was pink is just the kind of fun feeling that Tokamachi exudes.