Imaging and drawing old Japanese cafes.
Old Japanese cafes are called “Kissa-ten” which is written “喫茶店”. Normal modern cafes are just called cafe, same in Japanese.
For me, kissa-ten is very special space. I took a time and had a think about the reasons.
Everything I see in kissa-ten is very old which means not modern. I live in modern society and I’m very tired being in modern society. The modern society is noisy physically but metaphorically, because it tries to describe and categorize me by affiliation and where I belong to. For example, job, my gender, my race, my age, my cultural background, and so on. Modern society is too noisy.
However, when I am at a very old kissa-ten, I can be jut myself no matter who I am. Just the time passes, as my feelings settle down.
I have depression and feeling hard adapting modern society, but old Japanese kissa-ten is working as a meeting place of the reality and my heart.
So, these days, I’m drawing old Japanese “kissa-ten”.
