As a “reading textile” like a riddle to be solved, this textile is interspersed with textiles from Europe before the isolation of the country, maps from the time of Dejima, the logo of the Dutch East India Company, chintz patterns of hidden Christians, sketches of unknown authors from the Edo and Meiji periods, an English dictionary from the opening of Japan in the Meiji period, a clock to learn the European time system, Emoji for communication, AI image-generated images by words, etc.
A Nishijin weaver in Kyoto told me something interesting. He said that the colours that appear on the reverse side of the textile are placed in such a way that they do not want to be seen most on the front side are placed there. For example, purple, which disturbs the yellow ‘Emojis’, is placed right behind the Emojis. A similar process is used for the colour of people’s skin on the reverse side. When you turn the textile over and look at the reverse side, the colours you don’t want to appear on the front are placed there. I realised intuitively that this structure embodied a theme I had been dealing with for a long time, and I dared to show the reverse side of the textile.