“I move my hand and then I see it”: sensing and knowing with young artists in Japan

Abstract

When asked to reflect on their own creative practice, contemporary artists in Osaka would frequently invoke images of movement. In lieu of a preformed mental image or plan, they would emphasise the processual and emergent nature of creating a work of art and the importance of moving one's body, likening the gradual and meandering nature of their understanding to a “path.” At the same time, they would often compare their own lives to a path, albeit one with a far less visible endpoint than that which lay ahead of practitioners of the traditional Japanese arts. Along this particular life path, one must move without a clear idea of where one is headed; the path is laid down as one moves along it. “Feeling with the world” and sensing in collaboration with others, emerges as a mode of knowing.