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To everyone who visited Tsutau Art
During that brief period when I was working on Tsutau Art,
I don’t think I had ever said
“thank you” and “I’m sorry”
as often as I did then.
So many people helped me along the way.
And perhaps, through it all, I grew a little as a person.
It has been almost three years since the exhibition.
Shi-chan, whom many of you were so fond of, is seven years old now.
Since then, he has undergone three operations under general anaesthesia. Each time, he showed me just how strongly he wanted to live.
These days, he is full of energy — eating well, playing well, and sleeping well.
A lot has happened in my own life, too.
After the exhibition, I was sometimes asked,
“Did you get anything out of doing something so reckless?”
Whenever I was asked that, I would think back to how it all began.
It began with a poem I had posted online. A melody was written for it, and as I experimented with ways to bring the two together as a single work, I never imagined that it would eventually grow into an exhibition that filled the entire house.
In that house, I recorded the English version of Kedukuroi and filmed the music video for it. I later re-recorded the Japanese version in a studio, but the first recording was made in the music room there. I was also working on other songs in that room, sometimes on my own and sometimes with others. The two grand pianos, keyboards and computer in the room were also our playthings. We played music through the big speakers, sang, danced, and made whatever music we felt like making.
Looking back now, “mourning” feels like the word that fits best.
There were things I was finally able to let go of by letting them resonate through that house.
And I think I have been able to begin again because I am finally ready to encounter joy and pain even greater than what I experienced through that exhibition.
No one asks me to make these things, and yet I cannot help but make them.
I listen closely to the words and sensations that seem to arise from somewhere, and I am becoming less hesitant to let them out into the world.
Even before I began making work in this way, I had been asking myself what it means to express something — looking, listening and experiencing things both through making and through taking them in.
Now, I feel as though all of those experiences are pushing me forward, saying,
“Why not see what you’re made of here?”
I want to thank, once again, everyone who shared that uncertain time with me.
At the beginning of 2027,
I am planning to hold a solo exhibition at one of my favourite galleries near my home in Ueno.
Before I leave this familiar part of downtown Tokyo, I would be very happy if you could come and experience my work again.
And of course, everyone’s favourite, Shi-chan, will be at the gallery too.
I’ll share more information here on the website soon. If you left your address in the guest book at the last exhibition, I’m also planning to send you the details by post.
I imagine these past few years have unfolded differently for each of you, too.
I wonder how you’ve been.
I’m looking forward to seeing you again.
Luna Murano
1 October 2026