Conversation Series Fall 2025 Sofa Issues
Beautiful Misunderstandings
Peery Sloan in conversation with Shimabuku
“I never read guidebooks. I don’t want stereotypes. I’m not afraid of misunderstanding. Sometimes, a beautiful misunderstanding is better than a good understanding.” – Shimabuku
I met Shimabuku at an artist residency after what sounded like a small odyssey from Japan. Polite, tired, and direct, he asked if he needed a key. He didn’t—and in that moment, it felt like we both recognized one another as bearers of a certain, peculiar logic. A few days later, at his talk, he showed a video of himself dressed as Santa Claus in spring—standing by the sea as trains passed, a fleeting red figure glimpsed and gone. His work—disarming, funny, and quietly tender—doesn’t announce itself; it lingers, aiming, as he says, to “make the heart flutter.” I wanted to know what that means to him, and how he thinks about where art, play, and daily life meet.
Peery: When I first saw your work this summer, I was struck by how playful it was—and how much joy there was in it. Sometimes it even felt a little absurd, but in a way that made the world feel lighter. Can you talk about the role of play and humor in your work?
Shimabuku: My opinion is that art should be something for a bigger sense of peace. It has to make people happy. So first, I try to make myself happy. If I’m happy, maybe I can make others happy too. That’s my theory.
It’s like music—pop or rock music, or a love song. It might start as love for one person, but it becomes something everyone can share. Like Layla by Eric Clapton—it’s not only for him and one person, but for everyone.
P: So you start with something personal, and then it opens up.
S: Yes. I think that’s what art should do.
P: You’ve often worked with animals—like the octopus you took on a journey. What drew you to that piece?
S: Octopus is a kind of local colleague for me. I grew up in Kobe, and we have a lot of octopus there. When I was a child, I used to see them walking on the ground, which was normal. Later I realized most people didn’t know that, so I wanted to share it.
When I began to study octopus more, I found out so much more. It became fun to learn about something from home. Maybe that’s why I wanted to bring it with me—to learn more and to feel closer to the place I’m from.
P: Did it make you feel more connected to Kobe?
S: Yes, a little. My parents weren’t from Kobe, and my Okinawan name sounded strange there. People always ask, “Where are you from?” I think learning about octopus made me feel more local.
P: That makes sense. Do you see the octopus as a collaborator?
S: Well, I don’t say collaborator, but I feel like it was a friend in a sense. You know? I released it back to the sea, I couldn’t eat it. I imagined it telling the others underwater about its strange experience with a human—like someone telling a story about being captured by aliens.
P: That’s great. In a lot of your works, humans, animals, and objects seem to exist on the same level, as if they share equal importance.
S: The biggest boundary is between myself and everything else. Everything beyond me—humans, animals, objects—is kind of equal. I don’t feel the hierarchy that people usually make. I just try to be kind to all of them.
P: There are a lot of Indigenous worldviews that align with what you’re saying—that humans are no greater than any other species, that everybody is equal.
S: Yeah, yeah, yeah! It started to change. I think Western people have started to change, especially in Europe, you know, they started to think differently from before. So even when you ask such a question, maybe you start to think about it. Right? Sure. So that’s very good. I like it.
P: Much of your work happens outside, in public or in nature. What draws you to working in those kinds of spaces?
S: A studio costs money! (laughs) When I started, I didn’t have one, so I worked outside. But also, I grew up between the mountains and the sea, so being outdoors feels normal to me.
Wherever I live—Kobe, Okinawa, even Berlin—I always look for a mountain and a sea. Those two things are important.
P: You’ve moved many times and travel for projects. How do you approach new places when you arrive? How do you think about the people that live in those locations?
S: Usually, a museum or curator invites me, and we walk around together. I ask many questions—especially about food. Food reflects culture and history, so it’s a good way to know a place.
I never read guidebooks. I don’t want stereotypes. I’m not afraid of misunderstanding. Sometimes, a beautiful misunderstanding is better than a good understanding.
P: That’s a lovely idea—“beautiful misunderstanding.”
S: So I think artwork is like a beautiful misunderstanding or it could be said, my personal understanding. So I just try to see, try to understand by myself.
When you come from outside, you can see things in another way. That’s the good thing about being a stranger. I think that’s why I’m invited to different places—to find things local people don’t notice in the same way.
P: Your Fish and Chips project in London comes to mind. You filmed a fish following a potato in the ocean. I wonder how many Brits have considered a potato and fish in the sea together. Chippies are so common in London, it’s a very ordinary dish.
S: It’s too, too normal for them. So, you know, they never thought, “that’s a strange mix”, you know?
P: How do you know when something becomes art? Does it matter to call it art?
S: Well, that was fun. If it’s fun, I think it’s artwork, right? Yeah. If it is boring, I mean, there are many artworks that are boring. I love art and always want to make great art. But many things that look like art are not really art. The world is full of things that pretend to be art—paint on a canvas, for example.
For me, art is something that makes the heart dance. If it makes my heart move fast, that’s art. If it’s boring, maybe it only looks like art. So I follow what makes me excited. Sometimes, the works I’m unsure about—the ones where I think, “Will this even be a piece?”—end up being the best ones.
So for me, any form, any things, even dog swimming competitions, you know, if it makes you happy or it’s behaving like that— maybe that’s it.
P: So your definition is if it makes you happy?
S: Yeah, or it makes my heart dance fast.
P: So are you looking for an emotional response?
S: Mm-hmm. I often say art is not things to understand only. Many people in contemporary art today think that things are made to understand. Right? But sometimes you don’t have to understand. You just feel it or you just laugh about it.
P: Yes, I hear that too—it’s common for people to not “understand” art. It becomes a barrier to experience it. Especially in the West, in America, we get so cerebral and assume that we have to figure it out. Do you find that to be true in other places you’ve lived?
S: Well, of course. I mean, when I was in Berlin, I had a hard time because they didn’t like what I was doing so much. So I didn’t have many chances to show my work there, but it was a good place to live. You know, it was cheaper than other cities. Economically, Berlin was a good place to live.
You know, the West—part of America—is very much about understanding and things like American pop culture. It helped me a lot. I went to San Francisco because of this hippie movement. The Beats helped a lot too.
The West Coast of America? I like it. Especially San Francisco, Los Angeles—you know? They know how to enjoy life.
P: How so?
S: They had humor. They didn’t take things too seriously. They were reaching for something they didn’t know, without worrying about the goal. I like that approach.
P: Like your work, which is very open to chance. Such as the Dog Competition [Swansea Jack Memorial Dog Swimming Competition]. How do you balance your own ideas with what happens unexpectedly?
S: My work isn’t about showing what I’m good at. It’s about challenging myself to do what I couldn’t do before. That means I naturally collaborate—with people, with the world, with accidents. It’s like walking down an alley without knowing where it goes. That’s the fun part.
P: You’ve lived in Kobe, Berlin, and now Okinawa. How have these environments shaped your way of thinking?
S: Each place has different light, air, and rhythm. Kobe and Okinawa both have the sea and mountains. Berlin doesn’t. Its streets are straight—Japanese streets twist. These things influence how you think.
But maybe more than that, I’ve always been a stranger. Even in Kobe, people asked where I was from. In Berlin, of course, I was a foreigner. In Okinawa, my accent sounds like a tourist. So maybe location doesn’t matter—I’m always a stranger.
P: What have you been curious about lately?
S: Baseball. (laughs) You should watch more sports.
P: Why?
S: I think artists should watch more sports. Athletes have a completely different sense of space. Many artists move slowly—or not at all. But in sports, everything moves fast. They have this ability to know where everyone is without looking.
I find that way of seeing very interesting. I want to collaborate with them someday.
P: That’s unexpected, but it makes sense—the movement, the awareness.
S: Yes. I especially like watching Shohei Ohtani. His performances lift our spirits in this gloomy world. In that sense, he’s a true artist.
P: It goes back to your definition of art: it must make your heart dance..
S: Yes. You should watch. It’s starting tomorrow.
Peery Sloan (she/her) likes to dig—sometimes literally—to see what’s beneath the surface: worms, bones, histories, the things we’ve learned not to notice. Her practice asks how art might collapse into daily life, and what gets unearthed when it does.
Shimabuku: Born in Kobe, Japan 1969 Lives in Naha, Japan
After living in Berlin, Germany for 12 years, Shimabuku moved to Naha, Okinawa, Japan in 2016 where he is currently based.
From the beginning of the 1990s, he has travelled to various places in Japan and overseas, creating performances and installations that consider the daily lives and cultures of people he encounters, as well as new forms of communication. He also works in a diverse range of media including sculpture, film and photography. Full of poetic sentiment and humor while also inspiring people in metaphorical ways, his style has gained a worldwide reputation.