​Description

An installation using my grandparents’ belongings of the deceased that I have collected from 2024 to the present. From the day humankind captured the beast and brought forth fire, we have lived alongside things. Yet now we are on the verge of being devoured by them. Things acquired through mass consumption become, upon the owner’s death, vast quantities of belongings of the deceased. They place an enormous burden on those who must clear them away, leaving little room to remember the dead. This work constructs a space that holds an overwhelming volume of such belongings, making visible how much can accumulate in only a portion of a lifetime. It asks how we are to face these belongings, and how we might preserve the traces of the dead that are lost through house-clearing. It is also a discussion of the limits of recording, preservation, and collection.

Tableware, clothing, bags, shoes, diaries, household miscellany, books, cooking utensils, toothbrushes, cosmetics, cassette tapes, Hina dolls, toys, hats, cloth… an immense mass of belongings revealed through the process of clearing a house. The sheer quantity of things that once supported a person’s life is staggering, and the burden of dealing with them can outweigh the act of remembering the dead. And yet the traces of the deceased unquestionably remain within these belongings; they are the sole storytellers. How should we face the vast amount that is left behind? Driven by that question, and by the fear of forgetting the dead, I began recording and collecting the house and its belongings—only for their overwhelming volume to quickly encroach upon my own living environment, until I lost my place to sleep.

Through a complete inventory, the abundance of belongings became visible, and at the same time the image of the deceased—their character and daily life—began to surface as if pieces of a puzzle were clicking into place. Confronted with this crushing volume, the work compels us to recall the question of how we might face the dead and what they leave behind—a question that will come one day, or already lingers at the edge of our minds. The belongings of an unrelated deceased person evoke the former owner, and also lead viewers to recall their own past stories and their own dead. In folklore collections, objects are often preserved primarily for what they reveal about the universal features of an era; yet it is precisely the altered, non-standard objects—those that do not fit that category—that record the owner’s individuality and the texture of their everyday life.