A work of art often reflects an artist’s attempt to articulate their experience of the world, inviting us to engage with their perspective and, in turn, recognise our own connections to it. Fine art can sometimes resist immediate interpretation, even for the seasoned aesthete. Yet there are moments when a piece resonates in such a way that it seems to hold a fragment of our own understanding, expressing something we, too, had sensed but not yet fully grasped.
In moments of intrinsic understanding like this, I suggest that the artist and viewer share a common thread—one that, if pulled through direct conversation, might unravel an intellectual rapport or even a sense of kinship. Such an exchange is less feasible in the realm of canonical artists, where the individual is venerated by the masses. However, in the digital age, where artists at every stage of their careers inhabit expansive social networks, the pursuit of art can become a means of meeting like-minded individuals.
In printmaking and painting, I’m drawn to works with a graphic or geometric foundation that nonetheless evoke an impressionistic sense of feeling, memory, or sentiment. Several overlapping movements and styles offer a framework for what I mean—lyrical abstraction, colour field painting, or perhaps graphic impressionism. These classifications are secondary to me, but they help define a quality that catches my attention in a gallery—one that, to my sensibilities, feels intuitively legible.
When a work engages with cities, I typically pull in closer. Art that responds to its place of creation—whether shaped by or attempting to express something about the urban environment—hints at an inner dialogue that might resemble my own. Yet the city’s influence isn’t always intentional. Some artists consciously explore a place in their work, while others only recognise its imprint once the piece is complete.
As you might expect, the surest way to hold my attention is through a work that engages with Tokyo. About a year ago, I chanced upon a set of prints on Instagram. Though loosely rendered, the images formed a composite of Tokyo’s shitamachi (下町) low-lying landscape—what appeared to me as bridge pylons, a tangle of overhead cables, and the outline of a crosswalk. The assembled elements stirred a familiar sense of walking along the Sumida River.
As it turned out, the Hamburg-based artist, Anja Giese, had participated in a residency at Almost Perfect in Tokyo in November 2022. You might have heard of this programme—it was founded by Luis Mendo and Yuka Okada Martín Mendo, and supported site-specific and research-driven artistic practices, offering artists the space to create work in direct response to the city. Though Almost Perfect closed this month, it was based in a converted 100-year-old rice shop in Kojima, Taitō-ku—a brisk fifteen-minute walk from the Sumida River and the Kuramae neighbourhood that had indeed shaped the piece I’d bookmarked.
Recognising a rendering of Tokyo is nothing unusual, but pinpointing the exact neighbourhood the artist had in mind was a direct hit that prompted me to follow Anja’s work. She is now back in Japan, undertaking a residency at Bridge Studio¹ in Kyoto. I was eager to see how her new surroundings would influence her work, and so, after a year of mutual Instagram likes and the odd DM, we finally caught up for a conversation this week.
We enter almost immediately into a discussion of media and materials: for some time, printmaking defined Anja’s practice. With a background in graphic design, she explains how it initially served as a counterpoint to the digital nature of contemporary graphic design. As Anja describes it, printmaking begins by stripping away and excluding what isn’t needed from the block. I see it almost as the inverse of the typical graphic design process, where a limitless selection of colours, fonts, and elements awaits inclusion. Computerised design unfolds on a screen, soft hands resting lightly on a mouse or tablet. Printmaking, Anja notes, is physical—carving the block demands effort, forcing the artist into direct confrontation with the material, weathering and leaving blemishes on the hands.
I suggest to Anja that printmaking offers a natural bridge from graphic design. Though more physically demanding, its shared processes make it an accessible transition media leading to more raw, visceral forms of artistic expression. Anja’s current practice reflects this shift—she is steadily distancing herself further from graphics as she explores painting and collage, with an increasing focus on organic, plant-like forms.
I can’t help but see a correlation: her printmaking, often centred on urban motifs, seems to align with her time in Tokyo, where she lived surrounded by the sheer density of Taitō-ku. In contrast, her recent shift toward natural subjects could be said to parallel her move to Kyoto. Bridge Studio sits in Kyoto’s Sakyō Ward, a place of geographical transitions. To the south, it meets the cultural and urban complexity of Higashiyama; to the north, it opens into mountainous terrain. This ward is a liminal space where the city dissolves into a peri-urban fringe before giving way to untamed wilderness.
I am privy to a video tour of the space. The building, more than a century old, initially served as a paediatric hospital. Its architecture blends early 20th-century Japanese modernism with traditional design. The exterior reflects the Taishō Roman (大正浪漫) and early Shōwa aesthetic, combining Western influences—symmetrical facades and brick-tiled exteriors—with Japanese craftsmanship. Inside, the atmosphere shifts: tatami flooring and shōji sliding doors evoke the refined simplicity of minka (民家) architecture.
As Anja guides me around, I catch a glimpse of her studio mate, August Henry, and urban designer Mariko Sugita, who leads TCU (Traveling Circus of Urbanism)—the team behind Bridge Studio. TCU cares for and restores the building, preserving its historic character while nurturing its transformation into a creative space. Anja mentions that the building is bitterly cold this time of year—an unanticipated challenge. Fortunately, the neighbourhood sento is there to warm the bones, offering a window into the routines of local life as well as corporeal relief.
Exploring the surrounding neighbourhood forms part of the creative process. Anja recalls a day when, rather than waiting for the bus, she chose to walk just one more stop home. That simple decision opened up unfamiliar streets, prompting a broader conversation about how we experience cities. We share a lament over itineraries that claim, for example, you can do Tokyo in three days. “You cannot do Tokyo,” Anja says, to which I nod. After fifteen years of navigating the city, I still haven’t achieved such an accolade.
Instead, Anja offers a minimal approach to exploring Tokyo’s vastness, inspired by Luis Mendo: choose a single destination for the day and let everything else take shape around it. For her, arriving in Tokyo means a ritual visit to Sekaido, Shinjuku’s five-storey speciality art store. In my own experience, with Sekaido as the focal point, time bends—hours can dissolve in the quiet act of browsing, examining materials, and observing the rhythm of customers moving through the aisles. When it’s finally time to step outside, the city awaits, impartial. From here, the inner compass should be allowed to take over. Limitless paths between this point and home offer innumerable details to focus or defocus on. Perhaps picking a route through the city is not so different from making artistic decisions.
You can follow Anja’s residency in real time on Instagram², where she documents her days in Kyoto, offering glimpses of her surroundings and her work's evolving direction via her stories.
City Sounds
Like works of art, a certain song can express what words cannot, leaving us with the sense that someone, somewhere, understands what we’re feeling. I hadn’t intended to add to my workload by including music, but as part of my aim to reshare a Tokyothèque back issue on Instagram each week, this week’s happened to be a past newsletter on music³.
Reading the newsletter back reminded me that I initially intended to create a set of mini Tokyothèque OST playlists, each tied to a season, like a television series. However, while the newsletter often follows seasonal rhythms, it doesn’t divide so neatly. Instead, I’ve opted for a single, ever-growing playlist that compiles each song used in Tokyothèque posts, arranged in descending order by date.
I want this playlist to be easy to maintain—something I can update regularly to help more people discover the Japanese artists I listen to each week. Some of these musicians are well-established, while others are relatively unknown and could benefit from all the support they can get. Many also aspire to reach audiences beyond Japan, so if a track resonates with you, take it further—consider streaming their music, purchasing their releases, and following their accounts.
Kagurazaka Revisited
In contrast to art and music, maps provide a structured data-driven lens for understanding the world—precise, practical, and rooted in place. They hold equal importance for me when moving through life. This week, I’ve added a new map to accompany a past newsletter⁴.
I retraced my steps through Kagurazaka, a neighbourhood on the eastern edge of Shinjuku Ward. While the area has grown in popularity, the route I charted in the newsletter offers an alternative path—through back streets, yokochō alleyways, and local neighbourhoods. This map is free to access for a limited time, so be sure to save it while you can. Think of it as a preview of the maps in the Members’ Area and those I’ll be releasing in the coming months.
Seeing Anja’s studio in the quiet surroundings of Kyoto, revisiting the sounds of Tokyo I’ve discovered over the past year, and retracing Kagurazaka through mapping has me considering the many ways we transport ourselves to Japan—through art, music, or the streets we long to walk. That pull has me sketching out my next trip, a feeling I suspect many of you share—returning to this newsletter each week with a creative idea in mind or Tokyo beckoning on the horizon.
Until we meet in Sakyō Ward,
AJ
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Links
¹ Bridge Studio
² Anja Giese
³ A Tokyo Mixtape
⁴ Tokyo's Hanamachi Parisienne
Kyoto Residency
From Shitamachi to Sakyō, an artist’s residencies in Tokyo and Kyoto reflect a shift from urban density to untamed nature.