Cabinet of Inactivity
2025
Lacquer on found cabinet, objects, leaves, nuts and feathers
Book and sketches
used mossi and obi fabric
Koganecho Bazaar + Kamiooka Bazaar, Koganecho Area Management Center, Yokohama
Cabinet of Inactivity is inspired by the Cabinet of Curiosities—the origin of the museum. For this piece, I turned to Japanese lacquer, a technique I may never master but remain endlessly curious about. The process of working with lacquer embodies “learning-to-no-end,” a slow devotion that resists perfection. So does the act of picking up leaves, feathers, and discarded fragments from the street—things often deemed meaningless or dirty in our performative contemporary lives.
The embroidered words recall my activities during the Koganecho Residency. I ask whether my slow pace meant missed opportunities, or whether it allowed me to remain true to my rhythm, to myself, to existence itself.
This cabinet stands as a philosophical counterpoint to our compulsion for performance and consumption. From Karl Marx’s early writings to Han Byung-Chul’s critique of burnout culture, what we call “leisure time” often collapses into “dead time,” filled merely to avoid boredom. In contrast, inactivity—because it produces nothing—offers an intense and radiant form of life. Without pause, action deteriorates into a blind cycle of stimulus and response.
Because, only when we walk toward no-end can the body learn how to dance.
Photo by Liu Shujia
The learning to-no-end work in process
Photo by Mien
Back ground: The Hatsuko-Hinodecho area, consisting of the Hatsunecho, Koganecho and Hinodecho districts, in Yokohama City was home to many small-scale business properties used for illegal business including brothels in the disguise of restaurants or bars, numbering about 260 in 2004. These conditions in the area caused the living environment to deteriorate and posed a serious challenge for the local community, forcing many traditional businesses and residents to move out of the area.
In November 2003, to tackle this situation, local residents established the Association for Hatsunecho, Koganecho and Hinodecho Environmental Cleanup, which has promoted the building of a safe and secure community in collaboration with diverse parties, including the local government, police, and universities. In January 2005, the Kanagawa prefectural police carried out Operation “Bye-Bye” to drive illegal small-scale businesses into closure. The police still continue keeping watch over the area 24 hours a day.
In 2008, Keikyu Corporation and Yokohama City cooperated to build culture & art studios under the Keikyu railway tracks. That same year, with the aim of community-building based on the power of art, local residents, the local government, police, companies, universities and art experts came together to create an executive committee, and organized Koganecho Bazaar 2008. After the first Koganecho Bazaar, the non-profit organization Koganecho Area Management Center was established in April 2009 in order to continue promoting a comprehensive community building, exploring the relationship between art and community, as well as exchanges with Asia.
This year, the festival will take place across two venues: the Koganecho area and Kamiooka area. Around 25 artist groups from Japan and abroad—including those from East and Southeast Asia—will participate and present their works. During the exhibition period, guided tours and independently curated exhibitions by the artists will also be held. As a platform where artists and the local community intersect, the festival seeks to explore new possibilities for exhibitions.
