Were discarded art materials truly nothing more than “waste”?

This collaborative project between Meguri-do, a Kyoto-based art materials recycling initiative, and Sugisaki explores the lost act of “mark-making” through the recovery of hardened and unusable pigments and paints, attempting both material regeneration and mural production.

The work took place at Chapter YAGI, an independent free school in Nantan City, Kyoto. Under the theme “If we don’t have paint, we make it,” discarded art supplies were repurposed and turned into original pigments through workshops held with the students.

Simultaneously, soil from Chapter YAGI’s fields was processed into earth pigments and used as paint to color the interior of the kura (storehouse).

The mural depicts tools and objects that once filled the kura from floor to ceiling—its countless artifacts rendered as spirit-like figures, evoking the immeasurable time they endured.

Together with the “things” that remain here, we weave the present.

The space now functions as a dance hall.

In cooperation with
Meguri-do
Mizunoki Museum of Art
Chapter YAGI