Exhibition Statement:
When we consider global environmental issues, what matters is not only numbers and scientific knowledge. It is equally essential to interpret the cultural and affective practices by which people have felt, narrated, feared, and celebrated the world. From this perspective, the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) advances interdisciplinary initiatives that connect the natural sciences with the humanities and social sciences—as well as with the arts and social practice. At the foundation lies the idea that boundaries—marginal/liminal zones—are sources of new thinking and dialogue.

Focusing on these elusive, ambiguous “boundaries,” this exhibition uses the emotion of “fear” as a key to re-examine relations between humans and nature, self and other, and the visible and the invisible. In the late Edo period, the painter Hirose Kinzō, known as Ekin, created shibai-e byōbu (theatre-painting folding screens) that caricatured human desire and fear through scenes of ghost tales and vengeance, captivating festival-goers at night. Images of fear have long functioned both to draw boundary lines between different beings and, at the same time, as devices that keep those beings alive in our imagination.

Building on this tradition, Masae Kariya depicts a yokai-inflected imagination in the lineage of Koizumi Yakumo (Lafcadio Hearn) and Kyōka Hyaku Monogatari; Kazuhiro Yoshioka visualizes the thought of Günter Grass while presenting Ekin’s place within Tosa’s festival culture; and Kenichi Sawazaki explores in film the “boundary line itself,” where conflicting feelings—fear and awe, fascination and dread—intersect.

Fear is a universal emotion, yet its meanings vary across cultures, experiences, and contexts. Through the dissonances and resonances born of this polysemy, we question the singular value systems of our society and illuminate new relationships that lie between reason and emotion, and between the visible and the invisible. Through this exhibition, we invite you to confront the “boundaries” within your own senses and memories, and to explore emergent relationships that have not yet taken shape in words.

Exhibition Period:
5 days in total: October 25 (Sat), 26 (Sun), November 1 (Sat), 2 (Sun), and 3 (Mon, holiday), 2025
Open: 11:00–17:00
Venue:
HIMOTOKUSABI
5-13 Saenba-cho, Kochi City, Kochi 780-0823, Japan

Organizers:
RIHN, NIHU, NIHU Pioneering and Promoting Co-Creation Project

Co-Organizers:
Design Laboratory, Faculty of Regional Collaboration, Kochi University
HIMOTOKUSABI

Talk Events:
October 25 (Sat), 2025, 11:00–12:00
Yuri Nakatani (The Museum of Art, Kochi) × Masae Kariya (Artist)

November 1 (Sat), 2025, 15:00–16:00
Kazuhiro Yoshioka (Kochi University) × Kenichi Sawazaki (RIHN)

Special Dialogue (Video Screening) "Weaving Stories":
Takamasa Izuminami (Director of NHK Asadora "Bakebake") × Masae Kariya (Artist) × Naoko Fukushima (The Museum of Art, Kochi)

Curators / Participating Artists:
Masae Kariya (Artist) - URL: yellowvalleys.net
Kazuhiro Yoshioka (Professor, Kochi University / Graphic Designer & Printmaker) - URL: designlab-kochi.info
Kenichi Sawazaki (Artist / Filmmaker, RIHN) - URL: texsite.net