Living in the moment

The Michinoku Art Festival Yamagata Biennale is an art festival organized by Tohoku University of Art and Design every two years. This year marks the fourth festival, and in order to demonstrate new possibilities for art festivals in the midst of a dramatic change in the global situation, the program will be primarily online. As part of the festival, the artist will present video works on the themes of "earth," "body," and "space."

For the video interview, I spent about 10 days traveling to the places where Iai (Kyoto), Nohara (Nagano), and Eda and Arisa Kawai (Wakayama), who are all closely related to Utsushiki, live. And now, I am in the middle of editing the footage.

The people we interviewed this time were steadily walking their own paths in life, living beautifully and strongly in the present, not in the past or the future.

It's like I'm accepting myself today without being attached to my past self. I'm true to myself, if you want to call it that, I'm true to my body.

But rather than living with the feeling that I should follow the voice of my body,
I got the strong impression that it was important to relax and just go with what feels good to you.

At the same time, interviews give you an opportunity to think about yourself.

I wonder if I am able to live like them now.

I wonder if I am able to cherish each and every day like them.

What does it mean to live in the present?

"Tell me anything that happened yesterday."

In response to the questions from Utsushiki's boss, Mr. Ono, I could only answer in about four lines, in bullet points.

The boss immediately said something.

"Not having any memories of the past is the same as not having lived through that time."

I just couldn't say anything back, and a sense of loneliness welled up inside me, and even emptiness.

At the same time, at that moment, I honestly accepted and acknowledged that I was not living in the present.

I thought I knew myself better than anyone else, but it turns out I didn't understand anything at all, or maybe it's more accurate to say I've never tried to understand anything at all.

Watching them while reporting on the Biennale made me realise that living in the present is not as complicated as I had thought.

I think it's simpler and easier.

It's important to have times when you're working hard, but sometimes it's good to have some free time in your life, and to have time to relax a bit.

If you don't know what's right for you, maybe you should spend more time talking to yourself, or maybe you also need to take some time to just not think about anything.

You won't know what suits you or fits you until you try it.

It's much easier and more enjoyable to try and think about it first than to overthink it and end up doing nothing.

It's not a question of "can I do it or not?" but "will I do it or not?"

It's a phrase I've heard often and I thought I understood it naturally, but now I feel like I have a deeper understanding of what it means.

I think there are probably still many things like this that we think we understand.
As Mr. Ono said, I am careful not to trust things I understand in my head.

If you want to be a different person today than you were yesterday, then you must first live as the person you are today.

It's just a matter of accumulating these things.

Yudai Oda