[ 日本語 ]
In contemporary art, perception and cognition have often been approached through the assumption of a standardized subject. Artistic works are frequently framed within systems that presuppose normative modes of seeing, interpreting, and assigning meaning. When this assumption is unsettled, not only the forms of artistic expression but also the very conditions under which making, display, and circulation take place are transformed.
Neurodiversity offers a way of understanding cognitive difference not as deficiency, but as a plurality of structures. While the concept is often discussed in social or ethical terms, it can also be reread as a methodological framework for reconsidering artistic practice itself—including its processes of production, presentation, and distribution.
My practice does not treat neurodiversity as a subject to be represented. Instead, it is positioned as a set of operative conditions that shape the process of making. As a neurodivergent practitioner, repetition, fixation, the elimination of choices due to sensory intensity, an expanded bodily perception, and involuntary states of hyperfocus are not expressive strategies selected in advance. They function as necessary operations that allow the act of making to continue and to remain possible.
As a consequence, elements such as repetition, erasure, temporal displacement, and residual traces emerge within the work. These are not symbolic devices chosen to convey meaning, but outcomes that inevitably arise through sustained action under these conditions. The work accumulates not as a finalized image, but as a record of gestures that could not have taken another form.
This approach resonates with post-minimal and process-based practices that foreground time, bodily engagement, and material operations. However, rather than reiterating those historical frameworks, my practice differs in that cognitive and bodily difference is embedded as a constitutive condition of the work itself, rather than as a conceptual reference.
For me, artistic production is only one part of a broader field of practice. Living environment, studio, and physical exhibition spaces have all been constructed through DIY processes rather than inherited institutional frameworks. This was not an assertion of autonomy for its own sake, but a practical necessity: I function best in calm, natural surroundings, and high-density urban art environments often impose sensory and bodily demands that make sustained practice difficult. Physical art fairs, in this sense, can appear less as sites of encounter than as restrictive enclosures.
Designing spaces through DIY methods allowed me to establish conditions in which making and living could be sustained together. Environmental construction thus becomes an extension of artistic practice, enabling the adjustment of sensory thresholds and bodily capacity. Yet bodily practice also has limits. Mobility, prolonged presence, and face-to-face exhibition formats often generate friction with the conditions under which my practice can continue.
Online presentation and circulation therefore play a crucial role. Rather than functioning as a substitute for physical display, online platforms operate as an extension of bodily practice, enabling forms of presentation and exchange that exceed physical limitations of distance, scale, and endurance. They allow works to circulate without exhausting the conditions that sustain their making.
As an extension of this condition-based approach, I have established and operated a gallery and residency space. Within this space, internationally active artists are hosted alongside voices that remain prior to, or outside of, academic and institutional art frameworks. These include practitioners who may not yet be named as artists, but whose forms of expression persist nonetheless. Practices are placed horizontally, without hierarchical evaluation.
The aim of this initiative is not to replace existing systems of validation, but to construct conditions in which voices often marginalized by urban or academic structures can emerge without being erased. While this practice has generated a tangible artistic presence within its local context, it has not been directly aligned with metropolitan academic discourse. This distance is not a lack, but a productive separation that allows alternative temporalities and circuits of exchange to take shape.
In this sense, the production of artworks does not occupy a privileged position over other activities. Gallery-making, residency programs, collaborative projects, and daily life are placed alongside painting and drawing as equally necessary practices. Together, they form a sustained attitude toward remaining in relation with the world. Here, the term “prayer” does not refer to religious belief or ritual. It denotes an artistic practice rooted in everyday life, in which a sustained and differentiated intensity of attention and time is given to secular materials and actions.
Rather than speaking about difference, this practice treats cognitive, bodily, and environmental differences as operative conditions. Through this approach, it seeks to open pathways through which the voices of countless individuals working under similar forms of difficulty and misalignment may be amplified and connected beyond their immediate contexts.
Note
This text is based on sensations and experiences developed through my own practice. The articulation into professional and critical language was assisted by AI.