June–September 2025

For a period of time, I became afraid of firing clay.

Unfired clay can return to the earth with water. Once fired, however, it becomes irreversible while gaining the ability to hold water. To think through this transformation, I made two boots for a twelve-year-old girl. One remained unfired and dissolved when worn into water. The other was fired and used to hold water.

This question stayed with me for years.

During my residency at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, I finally realized a long-held idea: creating a ceramic boot large enough to contain a human body. After firing, the vessel was filled with water and temporarily inhabited by different individuals. The resulting photographs became part of an ongoing project exploring the relationship between soil, water, plants, and living bodies.

photo / film : Nobuo Yasutake