Kansainvälinen taiteilijaresidenssi

Sound and media artist Makiko Nishikaze: ”You can make music with anything”

Makiko Nishikaze is a Berlin based sound and media artist, musician and composer from Japan. In December 2023 she spent time creating sound, video and visual art in Oulu within the artist residency in Art Hub Pikisaari. 

It was the second time Makiko was creating in the space – she has been making and installing site-specific art in Art Hub Pikisaari during Pikisaari Biennale and artist residency in Summer-2022. 

Now the soundscapes and landscapes of Oulu were explored by Makiko in the darkness and occasional light of the Finnish winter night. Makiko recorded sounds of Oulu and created a series of light art and photography from different city sites – gently mining out the hidden gems of art from busy crossroads, crunchy snow, howling blizzards and roaring snow blowers.

Makiko Nishikaze kindly shared her beautiful experiments and experiences in an interview with Oulu based journalist Lölä Florina Vlasenko. 

– Modern music, videos and photos are all equally music to me, sometimes – music without sound. I am a trained musician and I use all my knowledge about music when working with image. 

Take moving water – it is always music to me, even if you capture it in a video without sound. Water videos are one of the things I have been doing here with other site-specific artwork I was invited to do.

How did it feel to come back to Oulu?

My connection to Finland is a long story (laughs). I grew up in a very rural place in western Japan, quite far away from Tokyo, in a town of prefecture Wakayama with a population around 12-15 thousand people back in the days. The nearest big city was Osaka. 

As a child growing up in a small town I was fascinated by geography. At that time we didn´t have the Internet, so atlas and all sorts of maps were something I kept looking at over and over. Atlas was my game: I was looking for capitals of different countries and trying to remember the names. One name was catching my attention and boosting my curiosity more than others: Scandinavia. I am not sure why – maybe I was captivated by how this word sounds. It sounded like music. It was also fantastically far away to the North from my town of Wakayama (smiles). 

Like other places you have been studying and creating in, Berlin and Oakland, California. What has been so special about creating in Northern Finland that made you come back? 

I keep looking for ways to explain my childhood fascination about Finland, but I still cannot precisely describe it. I have been dreaming of coming here since I was a child and I have been finding ways to come back as an adult. In 2019 I had a great opportunity to work in Ii as an artist in community. I got to know Tuomo Kangasmaa, who was also working on the same project. That in a way predestined our Oulu art residencies in Art Hub Pikisaari. And in between Ii and Oulu I worked as an artist is residency at the Serlachius Residency in Mänttä. So I can say that my childhood dream came true.

Finland resonated so much with me when I first got here that I thought: ”Maybe in my previous life I was in Finland. Or maybe I will become Finnish in the next life (if there is one at all)”. The nature in Finland touches me – especially after the density of Japan. I love traveling in Finland by bus or train. When I see the landscape where no village appears for an hour or so, my heart starts beating with excitement. The endless forest is so beautiful. And suddenly appears a small settlement. It is quite amazing, how they built such a high quality life in the middle of nowhere. This is Finnish, I like it so much.

At the same time there is something similar between Finland and Japan, something I don’t have words to describe…

I had this childly vision that a very long time ago Japanese and Finnish people could have been neighbours in some central Russia (laughs). They were seeing each other from two opposite river banks, not talking, but waving each other hello. This neighbours´ friendship didn’t prevent them from getting physically further and further away from each other, however, until they didn´t see each other over the river anymore. I have a special spiritual connection to Finland which I cannot yet explain. 

In 2023 I had some dental treatment to go through: some teeth out had to be taken out. I carefully brought them to Finland to burry, so that a part of my body can live here forever. I choose special locations for this ritual. Now I am so glad that I did it! 

What Finland natural soundscapes have impressed you most – Summer or Winter ones? 

I grew up in a warm countryside never having this much snow. In Berlin, much snow is also unusual nowadays. There is so much in snow artistically! Walking in the snow was one of the favourite things to record! In Kuusamo the temperature was suddenly zero degrees, and the snow began to melt – and I recorded it. Summer is also very interesting. Water, water, water – there are water soundscapes to listen to everywhere in Finland. The sound of the river, the ferry trip to Hailuoto….

You said that you create your visual works as if you are making music. How did you discover this approach and how did you come to music in the first place?

I started learning piano and music theory as a child. As a child I just wanted to make music. I didn’t know why – and nobody knew. I thought it’s nice to make your own music, not imitating somebody else. That is how I started making my own little sounds and songs and learning composition. Quickly I realised that writing music requires big skills and training, and I continued on this path. 

I felt that I had my voice. This is one thing to recognise it, another is to find a way to express it. You cannot learn your own voice from your teacher, you have to hear and express it by yourself. You can learn technical skills, but you have to find your own way. That’s the most difficult thing. All art is like that. That’s why many people give up – because it’s difficult to find your own way. And it is a long process. 

I think I knew what I wanted to do, and I kept going forward and becoming more and more interested in making something experimental. ”Experimental” is also a very ambiguous category (smiles). I saw it as something unconventional – until then I had been composing for instruments, for orchestra, for chamber ensembles, voice and piano… And then I started performing with no instrument, making sound with any object you could find, or using instruments in an unusual way – playing piano with my feet, for example.

Through experimenting with music I came to experimenting with video. I had been collaborating with experimental theatre and performance artists, and always somebody made a video documentation which I felt like editing. So I started to make videos myself – that way I had more freedom to document my performance. Video is also time-based art, like music. You know how you start and how it ends and how it goes in between. 

Most of the time my videos have no sound. To me it is about listening by seeing. It doesn’t have to force people to feel like ”Listen to the sound which is not there”. It’s more about trusting your inner ears. And enjoying it as music. I also have videos with sound (smiles). 

How did you break free (if you felt the vibe to break free) from the classical tradition of classical music education? Experiments don’t often go in line with this classical conservative way of perceiving music… In other words, how did you get from the point of being told how to play the piano to playing piano with your feet?

I just thought that I wanted to do it. Freedom is your choice. Nobody is forcing you to not do it (smiles). 

In Japan my studying of music could be referred to as rather conservative. Then I went to California, and at Mills College where I studied you can do anything. Nobody could say that I was stupid if I did it, and I have been making experimental music ever since. After two years in California I moved to Berlin where I still live in the fantastic environment with very many possibilities. 

I still have connection to classical music though, I often work with music based on Bach. Before I came to Art Hub Pikisaari in 2023, I was working on a new orchestration of Bach. To me it is the same as playing piano with my feet or cooking in front of people to make sound. Writing notes for doing a new version of Bach is the same. Taking music videos without sound is the same. One shouldn´t be short sighted. The possibilities are wide open. It took a long time to get there. I wouldn’t be saying something like that when I was twenty. 

Bach brought a lot of system and theory to music making and performing. How do you combine working with his legacy and experimentation? 

The combination of the experimentation and classical tradition are organic to me. And I like Bach (smiles). Music is my home. From there I go to the expedition and come back home, and go again…

Were your parents musicians, Makiko?

No, I am a very unusual human being in my family (laughs). Nobody understood why I became like this, choosing music and sound art, being the only one in the family living abroad for such a while. I just kept doing my thing all the time. I´ve been very stubborn (smiles). My parents call me an alien. 

It is sad that we have no common theme to talk about. But my life is my decision. 

How exactly did the format of art residency inform your artistic research, how did the residency change your routine? 

Away from one´s daily life is always good. At the same time you are not a tourist. You live in a different way, and the time is limited. The residency routine is always unusual and full of explorations, getting to know the space. Sometimes you get lost, and it´s ok to get lost. You are in a new place, you can enjoy each moment. And each moment is there to enjoy. I like this creative expedition very much.

Do you hear any harmony in the soundscape of our world or is it rather a cacophony to you?

Depends where you listen (smiles). It is quiet in Finland. What bothers me is how one gets exposed to sound. I like travelling in Finland by bus. Finnish bus drivers often put on radio that none of the passengers can turn off. That’s when I put on my Bach (laughs) in the headphones and looked at the beautiful landscapes.  

Sound pollution can get very annoying.  Luckily it is low in Finland, but it is very high in Japan (so much noise!). Whenever I go to Japan, as soon as I arrive at the airport, I realise, “Ah, it is not Europe”. Japan is very noisy country. I remember the acoustic oppression, especially during the Corona pandemic era, when there were so many “unnecessary” announcements in public places and stores, and you also could hardly breathe…

It is curious how the sound and the smell are underestimated as very dominating background sensations. You can avoid the touch, close your eyes or look somewhere else, but you can’t easily avoid the smell and the sound.

Yes! You can’t live with your ears and nostrils closed! Which smell bothers you?

Oulu is a city of wind. Sometimes it feels like the smell of the sea, when the wind comes from the ocean. But sometimes in certain districts one can smell the cardboard factory. What about you – what’s your least favourite smell or sound?

The smell of garlic. Especially when I didn’t eat it, and meet someone whose smell is strong, I think “Oups!” But in Korea, for example, the smell of garlic is everywhere. You are enveloped by the smell. It´s the air, which doesn’t bother me at all.

As to sounds – I prefer to hear none actually. Silence is not possible though. I like natural sounds. The sounds of the river, the rain and the birds. I often record natural sounds, cut, edit and add many layers and occasionally a bit of effects. However, I like when the source of sound is clear and the sound remains pure. 

Like the sound of the wind. My name – Nishikaze – means ”west wind”. I am wind. Wind can be cold and it can be comfortable. If you listen to the wind from inside the house, it sounds different. I enjoy that. 

What art practices did the wind of Oulu inspire you for this time?

I was taking a lot of photos of the lights in the city – street lights, shop lights – so that they are moving. Sound recordings – more collecting and listening. The pictures and the soundscapes were presented in Art Hub Pikisaari. I was also walking and meditating and just enjoying being in Oulu a lot. I was also thinking about my daily life in Berlin, previous and future activities. This is what residency gives – seeing yourself from the side, from an ”objective” way. 

Do you miss your instruments when away from them?

Yes! I miss the keyboards I play. I have piano, harpsichord and clavichord at home.

Do you think that the keyboard which is used for music and sound is nowadays more powerful than the one producing statements of words? Some hope art is harder to chain than free speech.

Art is strong enough if art is strong (smiles). Art can be the statement of your political opinion, but it doesn’t have to. 

I was so keen on what is going on in the world that I think I watched too much news. There are so many conflicts in the world that I couldn’t sleep without nightmares in the end. I don’t express this in my art. I am a human being artist living in today’s world, aware of what is going on through not just main media, but different sources. I digest it and I create artwork. It is necessary for an artist not to ignore what is going on. If one wants to make a statement, it is fine. I want to shake people with different methods.

And the method of silence has a rich history. There was a reason John Cage instructed the performers to not play their instruments for 4 minutes 33 seconds in the legendary ”4´33”. The moment of silence is a powerful ritual to commemorate a loss, uniting people in grief in ways no words could. Playing silence in the world of noise can be so awakening for many. You have been playing it a lot in Oulu, recording videos without sound and channeling the viewer to her own, inner soundscape.  

There is always sound, but sometimes without sound (laughs). It is not missing. It is in there. You don’t always have to acoustically hear it. Or think of the sound at all. Dealing with visual image and moving visual image does not imply lack of sound. 

Movie directors ask composers to make music inspired by the movie. I do the same simultaneously,  interlacing these creations in one composition process. Established ways are familiar to me, I can make and play music and I am educated and experienced as a musician. Composing videos has been very interesting, but I have to take a pause of making videos for a while. Maybe I will compose a string quartet and a pianist asked me to compose a new piece, so I have a feeling I am getting back to music.

One of the sound compositions you made in Oulu was basically a beautiful melancholy story, told by the creaking door. How many stories like this do you think might be missed out on a daily basis – the ones told by objects making sounds, by the wind accompanying leaves and such jazzy doors?

The sounds I notice from the noise are the ones I can make music with, but I don’t hear the story behind them. Sound is sound, it is not a narrative to me. When I find sounds I want to make composition with, I might start ”playing” doors and chairs. They can form a particularly interesting piece indeed! 

Making music for piano, doors and chairs or a string quartet is the same to me. The sound sources are all the materials you´ve got – instruments and non-instruments included. You make sound all the time, but it is noise until you notice it. When you truly notice the sound you make, you can play music with anything. Doesn’t mean you should play it with anything (laughs). 

Writer Randi Lindholm: “It is Impossible to Hate Anyone Whose Story you Know”

Randi Lindholm is a prose and script writer based in Denmark, Copenhagen. In Autumn 2023 she visited Oulu, Northern Finland, to work in Art Hub Pikisaari as a residency artist creating fiction and holding writing workshops and readings. 

Within a residency at Pikisaari Randi Lindholm kindly shared curious and inspiring ways to read, to write and to listen. She was chatting with Oulu based journalist Lölä Florina Vlasenko.

What are your hacks to avoid anxiety and concentrate during writing – specific music, candle light, complete silence, etc?

When I write I always listen to audiobooks or podcasts – I need to hear someone else talking. It doesn’t work with music, weirdly it has to be a text or literature related conversation: craft of writing or filmmaking podcast, for example, or somebody´s essay reading, or an audiobook. This somehow focuses the part of my brain that would otherwise be distracted and procrastinating. Once this part of the brain is occupied, I have the space and calmness I need to dive into the writing. 

Do you remember the moment writing transformed into a profession, when you thought “I want to go big – I want to be a writer”?

I still don´t know if I want to go big (smiles). I think I gradually discovered that writing was something I did all the time. It wasn’t something that I decided to do – I´ve always been doing it. When not writing, I was telling stories. Since early childhood I´ve been encouraged to share my perspective and outlook on life and the way I experience and observe the world. My parents always urged me to tell stories over the dinner table – stories of what I experienced that day. The better the story you could tell – the more interesting the conversation was. It is a gift and a privilege to have the space where the story is encouraged. 

It didn’t occur to me for a long time though, that I could be a writer, that it was a profession and even a job. Not until I discovered scriptwriting. Films I loved to watch were written by someone! I started to study how. It has always been more about storytelling than interest in language for me. Scriptwriting is the art of saying as much as possible with as few words as possible. When you write for the screen, the empty space is a part of the story and opens ways for intuitive reading.

Giving space – or applying value to the empty space – is something I really enjoy, as well as taking away the expectations, like not having to write long for something to be considered ”serious good literature” (smiles). When writing prose I am still very preoccupied with the idea of building narrative and sharing my observations of the world by writing very short. I work with the beautiful genre of flash fiction – just as script writing, it is about getting as much story as you can into few lines of text. 

How do you put as much as you can into as less as you take?

It is very much about leaving space for the reader to have an emotional reaction rather than telling what it should be. I am very allergic to the idea of people being told what to think or what to feel and I go contra on that. Creating a mood and an atmosphere for an individual reaction doesn´t take away from one’s experience of creating mental images or setting the storyworld. 

You chose a method of writing which is very opposite to most horrible and common patterns which are happening to the world of words, where storytelling is often mutilated by propaganda and bias. You chose the method of freedom for the reader to make own conclusions. How do you survive in the world of words polluted with propaganda and misuse? 

It would be hard for me to survive if I didn’t have this artistic outlet. I never thought of this writing method as the one of freedom, it is a very beautiful way of putting it! It has been freedom from length, relief from extensive, over-explained, word-heavy ways of sharing information. I am someone who sees the poetics in the world around me, even though it is not always present or clear. I find joy in identifying the beautiful moments between people in society which makes it very difficult to see this beauty and to believe in humanity. 

I don’t consider myself a very politically engaged person. Partly because I live in a part of the world where it has been my privilege not to have to be that. I do not have the talent, capacity, words, intelligence to describe all the injustice that happens in this world. All I can do is tell what I see and expose it on the page. I try my best to emphasise the suffering and highlight the injustice of the world through texts. Often you can shine a light on it even though the injustice is not happening where you are based or to the people whom you personally know. It’s a lot about pointing it out to stand alone, with no comments. How much is left unsaid becomes a commentary and often highlights the hypocrisy. 

What is it in the power of words that you feel most fascinated about and that other art forms might not have? 

I have discovered the power words have, because they allowed me to express myself when I couldn’t do it in any other media. I turned to the words because I don’t have other talents. I feel like this is the only thing I can do (smiles). My mom is a visual artist. As I grew up she very much encouraged me to draw, to paint, and I simply couldn’t express myself in this form. I also intensively tried to learn an instrument, but I did not have a musical talent either. Words remained my only way of expression, so for me they have become powerful. 

I am a little bit impatient when it comes to materials or technical equipment. If I need something to do a project, I often turn my attention elsewhere and work somewhere else. Words and writing have been associated for me with freedom from materials. Of course, I need a pen and some paper, or a laptop. But this is all I need. I don´t need specific complicated software, I can write whenever on my phone. I am not dependent on a specific place or studio or workshop that I have to go to to access equipment. It emphasises my freedom to be what I want to be and to move around freely.  

What points of connection with your audience do you find most inspiring? Do you picture the reader? Do you like reading your writings to people?

I never consider my audience in the writing process. I feel I write for myself. I have a story to tell, and to me it feels urgent and important. Sharing my stories and texts with the world is an afterthought, a lot of times I don´t do it at all and in general I don’t put as much effort into this part of the process as I probably should. I have, however, found that the best editing process for me is to share my texts with a live audience – to do a public reading. 

When you’re a writer you’re often removed from the point where your texts meet an audience. When you do a live reading, you are allowed into a space where you can experience the immediate emotional reaction the audience has to your text. 

It’s a bit different whether I work in script format or with flash fiction or short prose format. The script format requires a bit more organising to do a table read, but it is enjoyable to ask someone to read completely strange characters´ lines from a script they´ve never seen before. With flash fiction I made it a part of the process to meet a live audience very early on and to create a space around these texts. It is not until reading flash fiction stories aloud and having some reaction to them that I can feel in myself whether the text works or not. 

It was a beautiful experience for me to do readings in Oulu. I shared the new material I had created in Art Hub Pikisaari. It was the first time the texts met an audience, unedited and untried, and I was reading with a pen in my hand. I could hear in reading these texts out loud, whether the rhythm and tone were right. I edited as we went on, and the texts became complete in this space.

Did you actually add the performance element into the writing doing the public reading? 

Yes. I have tried to adopt the idea of performance reading: not just a reading, but activating the audience so they themselves feel a part of the performance. That has been extremely beneficial for me, but also quite fun for the audience. The interactive participatory moment that we share is very beautiful. People often find the performative aspect of the reading very surprising. I´ve often had people telling me they’ve never experienced anything like this before – normally the format of the reading is standardised, not a format that someone is challenging.  

In my work I am also preoccupied with the idea of active listening and applying value to the role of the listener. I am also a part of the artists´ collective called Bureau for Listening, working with the idea of listening as an undervalued concept in modern society. If we all learnt to listen a bit better, the world might be a nicer place! 

Have you experienced surprising reactions from the audience or the ones which made you smile when you didn’t expect?

Every time I do readings there is a moment like this. We had a conversation with the audience in Art Hub Pikisaari after the readings. All the texts that the audience talked about or drew attention to, were the texts that I felt maybe didn’t have a place in the collection I was working on. These were the texts I felt most unsure about, stuck with, thinking maybe they wouldn’t resonate as much as other texts. Then I had those reactions to them, hearing how they resonated intensely. It made me feel that those texts probably do have a place in the collection.

I feel like my little stories will have a different meaning every time you read them. You read them today – you will feel different when you read them tomorrow. Or if you read them with someone. 

So much of it is between the lines and the subtext. A lot of what shapes a story is your own experience in the world as well as the mood you enter into the reading experience with, the state of your own life at that particular moment that you are reading the text…

Would you reveal what the stories you created in Art Hub Pikisaari in Oulu are about? 

It collects multitudes. The collection I was working on here is very anchored in space – it is very influenced by where I was working on the different texts. So far I´ve been working on it in a couple of different locations, but always in the North. It has taken its form in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It is very inspired by the landscape, seasons and atmosphere in those parts of the world. It is also very personal, based on my experiences and thoughts about the ways I exist in the world and the way I experience social connections in new places, meeting new people. Sounds very self-centered (laughs). Central themes are belonging, home, loneliness. But there’s also a lot of hope and a lot of love for places and people. 

I work with a metaphor of islands and archipelago. It has somehow become a structure for this collection. I call it an archipelago of text and it allows me to have a lot of separate entities – stories – that are floating around in the same sea. Some days I feel like these texts don’t have anything to do with each other, they don’t even belong in the same room or in the same document. But whenever I have the readings I have a beautiful audience confirming that there is a clear narrative voice, a style and a tone that is shared throughout this collection. Somehow they do belong in the same space in the end… 

How does the location affect your writing? Have you noticed big differences when writing in Denmark, Sweden, Northern Finland? 

This space in particular – Art Hub Pikisaari – has been very special. It’s the first time I’ve arrived in the space and immediately felt like the words came to me. It didn’t take me very long to settle in – normally I do need a little bit of time to process transition from one place to another. I am also quite sensitive to space, so it takes me a while to arrive and to depart. I arrived in Art Hub Pikisaari in Oulu with all of these feelings of confusion and abruptness within me that came from other aspects of my life. But despite them I was able to write here on the island of Pikisaari (smiles)! And probably because of the fact that it is an island. It suited the project so well! I immediately was able to dive into the island collection that had already existed for over a year. I´ve developed more material here than in any other place I have been working on this collection. I find that I am only able to write stories for this collection when I am not in Copenhagen, my base and my home city. I don’t know if it’s about everyday life getting in the way or the urban landscape. But I do find leaving Copenghagen and going to a smaller place such as an island or deep of the Nordic scape helps this process.

These sound like the best parts of the format of artistic residency. For many it seems obviously a beautiful and fruitful thing to do in the context of art, multiculturalism and international collaboration. Yet not all the cities are generously supporting artistic residencies, unfortunately.  What are your observations of artistic residencies format?

I love doing residencies and I´ve done a few at this point. The dedicated time to an artistic process the residency offers is pretty magical. It is the time away from everyday life, relations, responsibility and distractions. It comes with all the curiosity of arriving in a new place, which is very nurturing to a creative process of any kind. 

I find that time has become a luxury commodity that I never have enough of. Going to a residency is an amazing way to insist on time. Whenever I am in the middle of a residency, I cannot imagine going back to the pace of my everyday life. I feel like allowing a certain slowness and attention to process and trusting in one’s own creative process are the ultimate ways of doing any creative work. 

I enjoyed the residency in Oulu a lot. This island text collection has taken its form during residencies only. It was developed during three different residencies and the periods in between – which have of course been much longer than the residencies themselves (and very little material comes from those). Almost all of the material comes from being in these creative bubbles in the Nordic countries.

You brought your little helpers here. In Art Hub Pikisaari you had a table in the centre of the space full of books and objects. What was this installation about?

Those are tools I might not use, yet it is very nice to have them with me if I do need them. I´ve learnt about myself that my writing process is quite spatial. Often I need to touch something. Very often I feel I need to write by hand (which is of course very impractical). I find that having certain objects in the space where I work is very beneficial for the process. 

So, in Art Hub Pikisaari I was having books I’ve brought and office supplies I have general fascination with (sometimes you just need a very specific type of paperclip, or stickers, or paper in different colours or different texture!) I´ve changed the contents of the table a couple of times. Everything was placed in order, in a particular way. This is the contrast of how my interior life looks like, normally extremely disorganised (laughs). 

The books I brought to Pikisaari included a few about islands, as I’m working with the archipelago concept. One was Tove Jansson´s ”Notes From an Island” which is an account of building a house on an island. It includes beautiful thoughts and observations. Another one was my favourite of all time: ”Atlas of Remote Islands” by German artist Judith Schalansky. This is an atlas of fifty islands she has never been to and will never go to. Some of the most remote places on Earth, islands that are often uninhabited, or if not  there is often just a handful of people living on them. It is beautifully written in between the formats of notes, history and storytelling. 

I really like the way of reading where you don’t need to read from cover to cover. You open a book on a random page, and that’s where you read – that´s a story that was waiting for you. The idea of length and expectations of having to start on the first page and finish on the last can be overwhelming. I also trust my intuition. If I am drawn to a specific book, maybe this is the book I need to read. Then you read and feel this is exactly what you needed to read in this specific time of your life. I am inspired by how people have done writing or art, and also just life in general. 

What inspires hope in you? You have been talking about the importance of active listening. If you knew now is the moment when everybody – or at least those whom you’d want to picture as good listeners – listens,  what would you flash-say?

When I approach storytelling or writing, I always start close, small, intimate and near to the subject matter, being drawn to these microcosmic communities, places, moments. I start near the core, and then I move away. The subject matter is taken into the world, becoming an unsaid commentary for something. I often leave my stories open ended.

I find my hope in connections between people. I do have a lot of hope in humanity. I do believe in the good in people. I do believe that beautiful things rise in relations between people, this is where the magic happens. 

When the world feels a bit overwhelming, you can focus on little things, the connection to one specific person, or a tiny object, or a table with inspiring materials. It can be as banal as looking at a beautiful flower. Observing two people sitting next to you in a cafe. Maybe if you actually make an effort to understand their story, you will automatically have a sense of why they react and exist as they do. 

The concept I always keep in mind when working on anything is that it is impossible to hate anyone whose story you know. If you make an active deliberate effort to listen to people’s stories, there is so much hope! If you make an effort to understand where people are coming from, you will understand why we live in the world we do, and be able to find hope in the beauty of interpersonal connection. 

We live in the world full of war, which is the opposite of listening.

I agree, war is insistence on speaking, dominating and taking space. Listening is full of generosity. It is about offering a space for someone to talk or be in, about offering attention to someone outside of yourself. It is a very beautiful way of living a life. You cannot have a dialogue without a listening party. The act of listening has been undervalued on a global scale for a very long time. Time to listen – to each other, to the planet, to elements of nature and society.