私も友人達も定期的に越境移動があり、生活の変化が大きく、各々1人で別々のステージに進んでいます。別れは避けられません。知人との再会が数年ぶりというのはよくあって、その再会が最後になるかもしれないといつも意識します。だから一時的に一緒にいる人、強烈な体験を共にした人、変な出会い方をした人、去ることが分かってる人を愛さずにはいられない。彼らのことはスケジュール帳にびっしりメモを残したり、そこに彼らに纏わる物を一緒に貼っています。この記録は友人を積極的に忘れるための試みです。

Each of my friends and I originally come from very different parts of the world. We do know that we will be apart at the end. Every time I reunite with friends after several years, I am conscious that this reunion might be the last time I see them in this lifetime. Still, I cannot help but love those who stay with me temporarily, those who share insanely fierce experiences with me, and those who will leave eventually. Writing about friends of mine in my schedule books and collecting things related to them is a way not to remember but to forget. Or if not to forget, to attempt to leave them behind.

定住せずに移動を繰り返すロマの人々は、死者は最初から存在しなかったものと見なすそうです。死者の名前や思い出は口に出さず、遺品も残さない。現世と生者だけがいる世界。私達の死生観はロマに似ている、とチェコの大学院にいる友人が電話で教えてくれました。海外生活の中で故郷や会えない人々を恋しがらない、思い出しさえしない、まるで彼らは初めから私達の人生にいなかったかのように。

Vagabonds, who do not settle down but migrate from place to place, treat a dead person as if they did not exist from the beginning. They do not mention the names of the dead, talk about them, nor keep their property. It is a world where only this life and living people exist. "You and I recognize death and life like vagabonds." My friend who left Japan and studies in a graduate school in Prague once told me, "We do not miss friends at all. We do not even think back on them as if their lives had ever crossed ours.”

2015年の夏に働いていたフィンランドのアーティスト・イン・レジデンス、haihatus。住み込みで作品を制作していたアーティスト達の写真をスケジュール帳用に撮りました。
Sometimes I take photos of my friends to paste them on my schedule book. These are thephotos of haihatus, a group of artists-in residence in Joutsa, Finland.

2014年のスケジュール帳。強い癖毛でアフロだった若き父の写真と「アフロの自由　人生は変えられる」という朝日新聞のコラム。遺伝で私も父の髪質を受け継ぎました。
My schedule book from 2014. On the right side of my schedule book is the photo of my father whose hair is naturally so curly that he grew his hair into an afro. The left side is anarticle from Asahi newspaper titled "The Freedom of an Afro. You Can Change Your Life". Fortunately or not, I inherited that huge hair from my father.

2018年のスケジュール帳。頂いた名刺にその人について直接書き込むこともあります。友人達と一緒に行ったバーの名刺も貼ってあります。
My schedule book from 2018. I wrote down some things about a Japanese artist on his name card. I happened to meet him at an underground club in Taipei. I also pasted the name card of a bar that we went to together afterwards.

私の英語の話し言葉は泥臭い叩き上げで身に付けました。会話をする中で、その場で真っ白の頭に相手の英語を丸々コピーペーストしていきました。今まで好きだった友人達の口癖、独特な言い回し、優しさを込めた表現、皮肉、冗談、音調、相槌、感嘆詞、罵りなど、未だにそのまま使っています。それらを口にする度、当時の友人1人1人のことを思い出します。
『千と千尋の神隠し』の銭婆「一度あったことは忘れないものさ。思い出せないだけで……」と。友人達から学んだ英語を話す限り、私の言語の中に確かに彼らが存在するのを感じます。

Entering an international high school was the time that I started learning to speak English as a second language by trial and error. At the beginning of my studies, my brain was just like a notebook with fully blank, white pages. In every English conversation I had, I would copy and paste what friends said into the notebook, and then quote phrases from the notebook when I spoke back. I use my friends' catchphrases, unique sayings, irony, heavy sarcasms, jokes, tones, interjections, exclamations, and curses that I have heard from them. Those expressions do remind me of my friends.
In the film “Spirited Away,” one of the characters says, “nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can't remember it.” Whenever I speak English that I originally learned from my friends, I feel their presence in my language.

最近友人達の口癖や名言や独特の表現を小さい刺青シールにして私や本人達に貼る遊びをしています。

Lately, I am obsessed with creating tiny tattoo stickers inspired by my friends' unique expressions, and pasting them onto myself or my friends.

毎週土曜日の夜にクラブに行く時に皆で顔に刺青シールと金のラメを付けています。
We put the tattoo stickers and gold glitter on our faces when we go out every Saturday night to the club.

自分が誰なのか問い続けてきた友達、その答えをきちんと受け止めた上で自分を大切にできる「I LOVE MYSELF」。
He has been questioning himself about who he really is, honestly accepting the answers, and taking care of himself. "I love myself" is his phrase to teach us the importance of self-love.

1979年に出版された和英辞書を母から貰ったのですが、読み物として面白くてよくページを捲っています。載っている例文は間違いではないのですが、表現が古かったり堅苦しかったりして、その連続はまるで詩や短編や哲学の引用文集のようです。「面倒臭い」の英訳が「difficulties arise」と書いてあるのをルームメイト見つけた時は大爆笑し、以来トラブルが発生する度に使っています。
He enjoys reading a Japanese-English dictionary that my mother bought in 1979. Though the example sentences are not incorrect, they are often too outdated or formal to use nowadays, which makes the progression of the sentences like poems, short stories, and even philosophical quotes. Ever since he saw the phrase "difficulties arise" as the translation of “面倒臭い（troublesome）," and laughed so hard, he kept saying "difficulties arise!" whenever he was in a tough situation.

スキンシップが欠かせない友人の口癖「触らせて」。タイのマッサージ師の資格を持っていて、いつも肘で私の岩並みに凝った肩を何とかしてくれます。「尊厳」を「尊」と「厳」に切り分けて1字ずつ2人で左目の下に貼っていました。
A friend of mine who loves having bodily contact with women always says "let me touch you.” Putting his Thai massage license to use, he massages my super stiff shoulders using his elbows. He and another friend divided the tattoo sticker "尊厳（dignity）" into "尊（respected）" and “厳（dignified）," and they each put a character under their left eye, which I thought was an adorable idea.

偶然台北の屋外のライブで耳にして以来、欅坂48の“エキセントリック”がカラオケの十八番の友達「eccentric」。サビはいつも皆でシャウトしています。「I! AM! ECCENTRIC! 変わり者でいい！」
「怒り」。友人が影響を受けた映画の題名であり生きる原動力でもあり闘いでもあります。
He likes a song called “Eccentric” by Keyakizaka48 so much that he sings it in karaoke all the time. We love screaming the lyric together, “I! AM! ECCENTRIC! It is totally fine to be a weirdo!”
"Rage" is the title of the film that inspired him the most, as well as it being the source of energy for his life.

彼の人生のキーワード「lightness」。軽やかさ、快活さ、軽快さ。
"Lightness" is the keyword of his life.

私達は生まれた時から覇権的な社会からラベルを貼られます。ラベルは人々を分断してきました。男／女、日本人／外国人、健常者／障害者、白人／有色人種、常識人／変人、異性愛者／同性愛者……。二項対立のラベルがどちらも当てはまらない時、私達は怯え、憎み、拒絶し、雑音として排除して沈黙します。

This hegemonised society keeps attaching labels to people from the time that they're born, and insists on dividing them into two groups: male or female, Japanese or foreigner, white or colored, winner or loser, heterosexual or homosexual, etc. But what would happen if your identity did not fit into one of those two groups? Could you hear the "noise" that echoes from inside of you, or would you be scared, hate, exclude the “noise,” and fall silent?

徹底的な破壊。私は自分に貼られたラベルを全部剥がして裸になりたい。そして自分が信じるアイデンティティを貼り直したい。自分がどんな多面的で流動的で名前のないアイデンティティを持っているのか、それはどのように形成され、また変わっていくのか、問い、模索し、表明し続けたい。その態度は友人に対しても同じです。表面的なラベルや他人の評価に頼らずに、自分で彼女・彼がどんな人なのかよく見て理解したい。声を聞き取ることできちんと個人に向き合う努力を怠りたくない。全てのアイデンティティは異なっていて、同時に全てのアイデンティティは等しく尊重されるべきであることを何度も承認し合いたい。

Thorough destruction. I want to remove all the labels and get completely naked. I want to tear the wall down. I want to re-paste onto ourselves the genuine identities that we truly find representative and comfortable. I will continue to explore and express my fluid and multi-sided identities without clear names dictated by society. I will continue to question how these identities were formed and how they are going to change. It is my attitude not only toward my identities but also towards others' as well: to not judge people by their labels, but to continue to listen, observe, and try to understand them through their own voice.

刺青シールの遊びは、友人の表現と自分の表現の統合を可視化しようとしたものです。また、新しいラベルの貼り直しでもあります。個人が発する固有の言葉こそが、独創性でありパンクロックであり申立てだからです。スケジュール帳に書くことで友人達を忘れても、彼らから学んだ表現は私の言語に残ります。それは私達がお互いの特有性と唯一性を聴き合ったことの証明であり、思い出せない記憶です。

My tattoo stickers visualize the integration of my friends' expressions into mine, as well as the re-labelling of our identities. Our inherent words are the punk, riot, rebellion, emancipation, and originality. Although I will forget about those I love by writing about them on my schedule books, their words will remain in my language as long as I speak them. It is the proof that we have listened to each other's uniqueness and individuality. It is all the memories we can no longer recall.