Co-creation with 7 artists

――Please tell us about the 7 participating artists and their respective works.

haru.: Ava is a Taiwanese artist who made the beaded dress that Moeka is wearing on the album jacket. This time, we are exhibiting the dress as it is. Each bead is spun one by one, and I like that you can feel the time that has been accumulated until the work is created.

Nico Perez took the jacket photo. Actually, Nico and I share the same office and work on various projects together. The jacket shooting this time was very private, but thanks to Nico's sincere approach, I was able to proceed with the shooting with peace of mind.

Christopher Loden is an artist I originally knew, and this time I asked him to work on "Hug.m4a" and "Mermaid". "Hug.m4a" is the first track on the album and was recorded on an iPhone. So I wanted to be able to actually listen to it from my smartphone at the venue, so I asked Loden to decorate it.

"Mermaid" is a work that I asked him to actually make based on the image of "a mermaid's tears hanging on a spider's thread" that I associated with the work.

I asked Alexander Julian, a master of the Sogetsu Ikebana, to do the planting for the exhibition space. He reproduced the "garden" in an almost free-acting manner from my poor rough sketch. The plants will change little by little during the exhibition period, so please look forward to that as well.

I asked konomad to make a "bat with braids" that I associated with "countdown". When I read Moeka's liner notes, I got the image of "a girl who swings a bat and hurts herself," and I asked her to embody it. konomad improvised and put a bandage on the bat to express the "angry feeling", and I was happy to feel that "my intention has been conveyed...!

finaleflwr is a friend who has been making magazines with me since I was a student, and after graduating, she runs a flower shop. This time, I asked her to make a tornado-like mobile, which was inspired by "continue". When I first asked her to "make a tornado," she reacted with "Huh?" (laughs), but she managed to reproduce the chaotic situation of imaginary plants being blown up by the wind, and I really like it.

DODI is a creative team that I have worked with at an event before, and this time I was originally planning to have them come in for the setup. However, when I showed them the plan, they got excited and said, "The garden is nice," and in the end, they supported me in various places such as the hut, doors, and ghost works.

――Thank you very much. While based on haru's rough sketches, I have the impression that each artist's interpretation has been added quite a bit.

haru.: Yes, in fact, I leave most of the details up to you. Everyone is working based on my rough sketches, which are like my delusions, and I feel both grateful and scared...

――Please tell us about the key visual.

haru.: The title of the album is "12 hugs (like butterflies)", so I was thinking of using butterflies. At first, I was thinking of using "doors" as a motif, and the idea of "hinges" came up there.

Regarding the shooting, when I was thinking of "I want to express the possibility of the future" from the association of doors, a member of HUG came up with the idea of using cyanotype (blueprint printed in sunlight). In the end, we finished by taking pictures of the photos taken with cyanotypes.

――I think that it is also characteristic that there are many goods that visitors can take home this time. Why did you choose this form?

haru.: I thought it would be nice if I could take home something that would remind me of the music and the exhibition space. For example, if you smell the scent of incense at home, you might remember the music that was playing at the venue. Then a new memory of the experience will be linked to the song. I thought it would be interesting if that happened.

Also, I thought that taking home "things that change shape = things that bring about change", such as seed paper that grows plants when planted or matches that disappear when burned, would remain in my memory as one experience.