Liquid Atlas in Toyama

Liquid Atlas in Toyama

2025

Glass made from rice plants, found dish plates at a second-hand store, pastel on paper, rice straw, rice husks, rice bags, projector

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Toyama is filled with rice fields. The wave of the Rice Riots rose from here in 1918. I burn rice husks and transform them into glass, often called ‘the hardest liquid’. Its colours shift according to the soil, the water and human activity.

As I walk through Namerikawa, I can hear water flowing everywhere. The river changes form, never stopping, always moving towards the sea. Upon finding a car parked atop a buried canal, I learned that ‘a river has no address’.

Glass, water and colour are all in motion. Yet they remain here, bound to this land. A single glass bead is a fragment of a map. The colours held within reflect the past and foreshadow the future, and the world viewed through the glass continues to change colour even today.