Dear All,
Upcoming show in Brooklyn
Kind regards,
Shino + Abe
Everyone is invited — free entry, no RSVP needed
Concept
Out of a desire to stop time, I began stretching moments, memories, encounters, and started carrying them to different places with me. I wanted them to exist outside the bounds of financial systems, legal frameworks, and the rapid pace at which we consume and forget. I want my connection to people to be free from the forces that inevitably shape our relationships, and make myself available for a global exchange of personal expression.
Cassette cases have long served as containers for messages, used as love letters, stand-ins for phone calls, and objects accompanying people in motion. Once mass-produced and practical, they eventually fell out of use. They became nostalgic objects and symbols of slowness, intimacy, and a non-digital, physical presence. The cassette case is a vessel I now reappropriate to carry my past encounters. They offer an alternative to the costly travel or digital fatigue of staying connected across distances.
“Dear All,” is an ever-growing and nomadic art project, archive, and exhibition created at the uninhibited rhythm of deliberate human connection. At its core, it is an investigation led by emotion over theory, acting against the speed and impersonality of digital data gathering. The research intends to understand how we give meaning to relationships and sustain connections with people and places.
Through “Dear All,” I look back and ahead, mapping where I have been, and dreaming of where I might go and who I have yet to meet. It is my guide through a journey of finding out how I want to, or even how I may, exist in this world. What does it mean to form a bond? And what does it mean to keep it alive with or without the presence of the other person?
As someone without a fixed background or place to call home, I seek to understand my place by documenting connections through the exchange of cassette boxes. I hand out empty ones to be returned with memories, artworks, files, instructions, offerings, objects, and gestures inside. What began as a flickering interest in the summer of 2023 has since grown into a long-term commitment across Europe, Japan, and the US. Each cassette case becomes part of a growing constellation of relationships, offered by friends, strangers, artists, and non-artists alike. The only preconditions are that our paths intersect, the contribution fits inside the box, and that I won’t risk any legal offense by crossing borders with it.
Even with a contribution of 112 cases, not all of them are present in this exhibition. Some remain in the hands of those I may never meet again as empty promises or unfulfilled ambitions. Others are still waiting to be given and received. And so, the project sprouts little by little, in no particular pattern or direction– a strange and unpredictable growth.
Past Exhibitons
Ge-shuku, Kanazawa, Japan, December 2023
Kunsttoren, Ghent, Belgium, June 2024
Archive 2023 - Ongoing
Abraham Coriat --- Antonio Femia --- Airi Ishida --- Aoi Kobayashi --- Alyssa Oedit --- Alejandro Tacher-Lois --- Armangul Zeken --- Bilal Gamal Abdel-Hafiz Ali Elsayed --- Bianca Giuliano-Thomas --- Boris Daems --- Beljita Gurung --- Brian Yao --- Colson Ayars --- Chrys’Amaya Michailidis --- Christopher Nyborg --- Christian Noll --- Chihiro Okura --- Caitlyn Phu --- Charlotte Rood --- Daniel Zeeland --- Emma Aoki --- Eli de Haas --- Ezra Franklin --- Eisuke Kikkawa --- Enrico Marcon --- Enya Mase --- Emily Tanaka Kaline --- Federico Grilli --- Flore Sparretak --- Giulio Dal Molin --- Giorgio Kralkowski --- Giordana Scarpato --- Haru Asaki --- Hsin-Yu Chen --- Honoré d’ O --- Harry Li --- Hayato Nagahama --- Hikaru Takayama --- Hirokazu Tanaka --- Inge Braeckman --- Ilinca Fechete --- Isaac Kau --- Isak Reinhardsen Vittersø --- Jaden Graham --- Jacob Lambrecht --- Jasper Stieve --- Koyu Amagasu --- Kyoka Eguchi --- Kazuo Hayashi --- Kazumasa Kadoi --- Katarzyna Kubrak --- Ken Takeuchi --- Kristina Tchikin --- Leon Haga --- Lena Hoppenbrouwers --- Lisa Miyasaka --- Layla van den Broek --- Lotte Vocking --- Milo Burr --- Mikito Fujii --- Mizuki Hatanaka --- Motoki Ishijima --- Minami Kobayashi --- Momoko Kishi --- Mees Noordzij --- Marin Stephens --- Miku Suzuki --- Margo Vanneste --- Mark van Hoek --- Magnus John-Matti Vogel --- Mao Wu --- Nidhin Nishanth --- Natasha Zibella --- Reyndert Guiljam --- Raphaël Huraux --- Rintaro Koiwai --- Ronja Kok --- Ryunosuke Matsuo --- Reilly do Rosario --- Ryunosuke Tomita --- Seppe Claerbout --- Sammy Elsayed --- Stoer Gothenburg --- Sophia Lewis --- Shu Matsumoto --- Satoshi Niwa --- Sota Tatami --- Sein Teramoto --- Spencer Nordmeyer --- Spijker van Duin --- Sophia Vielma Fleischhacker --- Senne Wettinck --- Stan Wiersma --- Soran Zhuo --- Takeshi Aso --- Takuya Fukada --- Thom Jansen --- Takeru Matsuyama --- Tsukiko Suga --- Taiga Taba --- Tim van den Bos --- Umi Asada Bruce --- Vera Kersting --- Valentina Marchetti --- Ward Maas --- Will Morrow --- Yusuke Adachi --- Yui Ishiwata --- Yanna Kok --- Yutaka Kobayashi --- Zhixin Angus Liao --- Zeger Vetters
The countries shown indicate where the cassette case was given. Other details, such as from where the case was received, the year and place I met the participant, as well as their country of origin, current place of residence, and cultural background, are only available at the physical exhibition.
If you happen to be at an exhibition and you have the pass code, you can see the full archive here
