Tomonari NAKAYASHIKI × Takayuki MITSUSHIMA〈The Ones Who See〉

This exhibition will focus on two artists. The first artist, Takayuki Mitsushima, is fully blind, while the second, Tomonari Nakayashiki, is color blind. Both artists perceive the world in their own unique ways, offering an opportunity for visitors to reconsider what it means to “see.”

Mitsushima expresses the shape of the city through a series of nails hammered into wooden panels at a variety of angles and elevations. This approach transposes the images he obtains from his daily life, including using a white cane, into different, textural sensations. Nakayashiki, on the other hand, decouples common sense from perception, such as the assumption that distant things look small, or that the past and the future can’t be seen simultaneously. At the same time, his unique tonal approach imbues the motifs in his work with a new sense of existence.

This exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to directly touch the artwork. Opening up the work to a range of sensory experiences in this way creates new encounters regarding the act of seeing, and encourages a reexamination of what we consider to be shared awareness. We hope this exhibition will contribute to a future where a richer worldview has been created in the minds of the visitors.

Planning by

Yoko TAKAUCHI

Yoko Takauchi was born in Hyogo prefecture and currently lives in Kyoto. She completed her coursework in the PhD (Philosophy) program at Kwansei Gakuin University’s Graduate School of Humanities. While working with disabled people, including at facilities for children with severe physical and mental disabilities, group homes, and as a domestic caregiver, since 2012 Takauchi has also worked as a personal studio assistant for Takayuki Mitsushima, a fully blind artist. Since 2020, she has served as the manager for the Atelier Mitsushima art gallery and studio where she is responsible for overseeing the facilities and planning exhibitions and workshops. Major exhibition projects include Is That a Gaze? (Atelier Mitsushima Sawa-Tadori, 2021), Beside the Gaze (Atelier Mitsushima Sawa-Tadori, 2023), and Ryosuke Imamura and Takayuki Mitsushima—Research Project on the Senses: Any Point “P” in the Domain of Sensations (Tokyo Shibuya Koen-dori Gallery, 2025), while major workshops include Visually Impaired People Meet Art (since 2021) and Focused Dialogues (since 2023).

 

 

※CRAWL is a program for art workers (planners) run by Art Center BUG.