KASUMI IWAMA

Mega City / 巨大都市
Acrylic on pistachio shells

New York and Tokyo were the world's first declared "mega-cities" (cities with more than 10 million inhabitants). According to the UN, currently 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas, and it is stipulated that by 2050, 66% will be.

When I read the above-mentioned statistic, it caught my attention because New York and Tokyo were my two homes where I lived and grew up. The work presents a mountain of pistachio shells, all painted with an expressionless face. This is my impression of the two cities in a nutshell (pun intended). Especially in Tokyo, the people who deviate from society are pushed away and therefore what we are left with are millions of people who look the same, riding the subways piled on top of one another, with the same, expressionless face. I imagined what the world would be like if 66% of the it adapted to this urban lifestyle. The glass filled to the brim with pistachio faces is a visual metaphor for the housing crisis, as densely populated cities almost always are confronted with affordable housing issues and people are crammed into tiny living spaces to make ends meet. 

The pistachio shells were used because it represents my presence as the artist. Pistachios were something I had been obsessively snacking on during the few months that I was developing and producing this work. 

​

ニューヨークと東京は世界で初めて「大都市」と認定された都市の二つです（人口が１千万人を超える都市）。国連の調査によると現在の世界人口の55%は都市部で生活しており、2050年にはそれが66%になっていると予想されています。