Dear All,
“Dear All,” is an ever-growing and itinerant art project, installation, archive, and exhibition created at the uninhibited rhythm of deliberate human connection.
It maps how we give meaning to relationships, places, and time. It is an ongoing letter, a living research, and an ode to human connection. It grows not through repetition, but through transformation, each iteration shaped by new encounters, shifting contexts, and the textures of the place it inhabits. The installations are site-specific every time, sculpted by the experiences I have in a country. The archive, however, remains unbound, ever-expanding and carried across borders and time.
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
The first presentation at Geshuku translated European experiences into a Japanese context. The space was divided by a hanging cross structure. Each section charted time spent in different countries through cases, images, and records. Visitors sat on temple cushions, opened cases, and engaged in conversation. The show was intended to counter the more controlled exhibitions in Kanazawa.
The poster was created for the inaugural exhibition of the Dear All project, which featured a dual presentation. On one side, the exhibition displayed the 37 cases I had collected up until that point. On the other hand, the texts on the wall and publications provided context to my background, the insights I had gained during my time in Europe, and anecdotes from various relationships, countries, and time periods. This combination of visual and textual elements aimed to offer a multifaceted perspective on my personal journey and the broader themes explored in the Dear All, project.
Kunsttoren, Ghent, Belgium, June 2024
Dear All, in Ghent was inspired by a miniature-scale model of a solar system. It mapped imagined distances and positions to examine the relationships between the participants and me. The installation’s center referenced Belgium, where I first encountered bureaucratic challenges related to migration, and the location of the European Union’s headquarters, whose flag features stars positioned in a circle. The installation, like the constellation of stars, evoked planetary bodies and their common orbital patterns.
The archive and publication for Dear All, in Ghent is based on the mutoscope, a motion picture device from the late 1890s that functions like a mechanical flipbook with a reel. The publication spins around its center, becoming a miniature reference to both the bigger constellation in the exhibition, creating a movement similar to the large constellation it accompanies in the exhibition space. The experience of flipping through the publication is randomized, with each visitor continuing where the previous one left off. This approach eliminates any clear beginning or ending, making the interaction open-ended, fluid, and coincidental.
telos.haus, Brooklyn, New York,
United States of America, August 2025
Dear All, New York (2025), created with Abraham Coriat, reappropriated building materials and an oversized pillow to reference a bedroom where the memory of many is stored. The installation reflects my experience of building relationships from scratch in a constantly shifting city. Moving between beds and couches offered by strangers fostered forms of intimacy that contrasted with New York’s accelerated pace and the exclusive codes of gallery culture. This iteration emphasized social exchange and proximity, inviting slow-paced participation onsite and through a livestream at telos.haus.
I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to all those who made this exhibition possible.
Abraham Coriat
for your constant support, patience, and invaluable collaboration throughout Dear All,
telos.haus
organised by Soran Zhou and Karen Yang, for generously hosting the project
Milo Burr
for beautifully photographing the installation
Alejandro Tacher-Lois, Matthew Rebecchini, Joshua Piña, Leah Yutong Liu, Ruyi Xu, Echo Fengxiao, William Hu, Murray Lu, Yuki Takashima, and Harry Li
for tackling an incredible amount of work around construction, sewing, and breaking down
Jacob Lambrecht, Yanna Kok, and Ronja Kok
for thoughtful feedback during the planning stages
Empty Installation Photographed by Milo Burr
in 2023, shino matsuura began handing out empty cassette cases to those she encountered on her travels, inviting them to fill it with whatever they wished. anything went as long as the content fit within the clear, 4.25" × 2.75" norelco box and wouldn't get shino arrested for transport across borders. so far, she has distributed 112 cassettes - from the netherlands, to italy, to japan, and beyond - each one reflecting a unique bond carried and maintained wherever shino goes.
who is an "artist"?
what does it mean to be bonded with someone? how do you transport an ever-growing number of cassette tapes across continents?
"dear all," invites more questions than answers, in the artist's words, the project "is my guide through a journey of finding out how i want to, or even how i may, exist in this world."
previous iterations of this nomadic exhibition have appeared at ge shuku in kanazawa, japan (december 2023) and kunsttoren in ghent, belgium (june 2024).
for telos.haus, matsuura has collaborated with architect abraham coriat to create a site-specific installation: a custom-sewn curtain of debris netting suspended from electrical conduit, bringing the industrial grit of east williamsburg inside while creating an intimate viewing environment at sitting height.
shino matsuura & abraham coriat: 'dear all,'
august 15-17, 2025
telos.haus
303 ten eyck street, 2nd floor
brooklyn, ny 11206
Top left: J-card mini flyer
Middle: Hand-sewn and foldable invitation
Top right: J-card mini flyer inserted in a cassette case
Bottom: Exhibition overview of all cassette cases
Archive 2023 - Ongoing
Abraham Coriat --- Antonio Femia --- Airi Ishida --- Aoi Kobayashi --- Anh Nguyen --- 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 --- Dante Marrone --- 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 --- Matthew Rebecchini --- Marin Stephens --- Miku Suzuki --- Margo Vanneste --- Mark van Hoek --- Magnus John-Matti Vogel --- Mao Wu --- Nidhin Nishanth --- Natasha Zibella --- Reilly do Rosario--- Reyndert Guiljam --- Raphaël Huraux --- Rintaro Koiwai --- Ronja Kok --- Ryunosuke Matsuo --- Ryunosuke Tomita --- Seppe Claerbout --- Sammy Elsayed --- Stoer Gothenburg --- Souya Handa --- 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
