I started a project to make a promise to "others I’ll never meet" during the state of emergency.
In the past, Mr. Hyakuro MURASAKI, a famous garbage collector, referred to strangers as "ghosts with a form" and said that even if they existed, they had nothing relevant to him.
However, through the very presence of COVID-19, we now realize that the stranger is not a ghost, but a human being, and that he or she has something to do with us.
This project will help us to imagine such "invisible beings.” And if the presence of the promise not only makes us feel the "invisible other," but also gives us a sense of tension and enjoyment in our daily lives, I believe that this is proof that humans are social animals, and that this is something that only humans can do, and that this is art. You are free to consider this project as either a futile toil or a cultural occupation (I think it is a masochistic project). I feel that it is something that can and must be left behind which could happen only under such a state of emergency.
Osamu Matsuda, April 2020