J Sakaguchi

  I wanted to go for something a lot lighter than the last project, so I chose to document my shits throughout the week in the stall by my room down in Armington. I go there daily, never really pay attention to the details, but I thought it would be fun and also an eye-opening experience to base such a project on. I enjoyed it and came to realize how my body reacts to certain foods a little bit more clearly. As the days went on, the space was mentally formed into something I almost looked forward to, the distinct smell the bathroom had of hand soap, moist paper towels in the bins, faint scents of the FeBreeze I always spray before/after haircuts, and more. Overall, this was a simpler project for me, but it was fun. I also decided to go back to using some simple mark-making with a pen and colored pencils, like I used to do as a kid. Through the fun, playful documentation of the shits throughout the week, it heightened my awareness of the entire act, and brought closer attention to a...

  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3ave77RAXpL-7CPspaOEUI4BvHCtt65/view?usp=drive_link ^link to the drive though The gift giving/sharing was very interesting. I had never had a guava fruit before and was given one. Gabe got a persimmon. We both didn't know how to eat it, so that was a fun time trying to figure that out. We came up with the idea of using the road and turning it into something unconventional, and a spot that would make people's heads turn (an F1 (or any major sports car racing event) pit stop). Even as we were finishing up the project, people passing by would give us glances and say how they thought it was intriguing, so hopefully those were signs of a heightened perspective on the space between Armington and the GLC. The section seems to be a popular spot within the student culture, the drain being the center of it, so we thought of using surrounding things to draw attention in. It was fun to use the drain and also the fire hydrant to "connect" the pi...

    For this project, I used a pen and cardboard. I measured the distance from Fairfax, VA, to Tsukishima, Tokyo, Japan, where I currently live. It measured to be about 6770 miles. I wrote/condensed my testimony to around 3170 words and then wrote a Japanese translation to around 3600 characters to sum up to the 6700. I measured my history through the laborious work of writing each word and character, and many emotions were evoked through this process that took around 7-8 hours, on top of the time spent writing/translating my testimony. Through the act of writing itself, I re-visited memories from my childhood where my hand was aching due to intense practice and long writing that my parents/school made me do. The short sayings that are at the bottom of the piece were significant, because I remember doing calligraphy for each character multiple times before performing on the "real deal" throughout my local Japanese elementary education. "The nail that sticks out gets hamm...