What They Really Needed
あの時、欲しかったもの
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Materials | Blue tarp, steel scaffolding pipes, corrugated tin |
| Location | Riverbed, Japan |
| Format | Installation (photographic display + inhabitable structure) |
What they really needed was a house made of just three materials.
At this very moment, people are losing their lives to fragile healthcare systems. In developing countries, there is a reality in which lives must be given up as "in God's hands." When disaster strikes a region where food, clothing, and shelter are precarious even in ordinary times, suffering compounds twofold, threefold.
In 2020, at a relief site after a typhoon struck Honduras, I heard people living in shelters say: "A tin roof, a blue tarp, iron poles. With just these three we could build a house. Yet even that support never reaches us from the state. Once we are turned out of the shelter, we have nowhere to go." This is what disaster means in the developing world.
With only three basic materials, people can build a home and secure a place that protects life. Even that bare minimum did not reach them. A space barely a "house" — more like a tent. And yet it was absolutely necessary for staying alive. There, I had to face my own powerlessness.
Carrying that unresolvable frustration, I still wanted to take this feeling on as a work of art. I cannot fully understand them; I cannot live their lives. But for a brief moment, our thoughts can cross. By exhibiting and letting people experience what they once truly needed, indifference can turn into concern. Inside this "house," I hope events in a distant country come a little closer.
