Recently, I have been fascinated by bicycles. When I lived in Toride, Ibaraki Prefecture, I was shocked by the fact that no one rides on a bicycle when Toride was famous as a bicycle town. I researched on why this happened. In the past Toride and Ibaraki tried to make their town famous for bicycles. One of the reasons why Toride tried to be a bicycle town is because there was a bicycle race track in the past. However, nowadays, Toride is a place where a lot of bicycles are left unattended and discarded. Thus, I decided to use abandoned bicycles from my town, which are local problems, to other areas as artworks.

One of the other important materials I use is metal.

I spend most of my day in my metalworking studio. Metal is a very stubborn material. Cutting, bending, and joining all takes an enormous amount of time. Even if steel is the material which rusts when it is abandoned alone, it is very strong. It can endure tremendous weights as you can see from my artworks.

The bicycle reborns through my creative activities of combining bicycle and metals. In the past, the bicycle for me was a device that widened my potential to the maximum. Bicycles allowed me to ride everywhere I went, and I felt like I could go anywhere I wanted.

One of the interesting elements of bicycles is that each bicycles has its own story. Where they were bought, how they were used, and where they went with the owner. Whenever I received unwanted bicycles, I heard many stories from the owner. Thus, I wondered what if I could breathe new life into these ownerless bicycles, whose time and history have come to a standstill, by collecting fragments of their previous owners’ memories and turning them into works of art.