COSO exhibition combines family photographs, rabbit-skin glue and oil paint to trace memory inside the home

COSO is presenting “I Hope This Finds You Well,” the first solo exhibition in Korea by Tokyo-based architect and artist Yukasa Narisada, through Oct. 21.

Selected through the “COSO Open Call 2026,” the exhibition continues Narisada’s investigation of how domestic space is distributed, named and occupied within the family.

The project began with the artist’s observation that the children in her family home each had their own rooms and her father had a study, while her mother had no room that could be identified as her personal space.

Narisada uses this imbalance to examine the relationship between the social role of “mother” and residential space in Japanese households. What began in 2022 as an attempt to create a room for her mother has gradually shifted toward observing her mother’s presence within the existing home.

The artist records shelves that have been emptied, spaces where objects were organised and gestures repeated through everyday domestic work. The project thereby moves from the question of how to construct a room for someone toward the question of how that person can be observed and remembered.

The works presented in Seoul begin with photographs of those traces and gestures. Narisada hardens the photographic surfaces with rabbit-skin glue before applying oil paint, adding physical layers to records of the family home.

The artist associates rabbit-skin glue with the idea of something that will not return, drawing on her own allergy to rabbits. Its use introduces a material tension between preservation and distance as the images are covered, fixed and reconsidered.

The exhibition title adopts a phrase commonly used at the beginning of a letter. In this context, it functions as an address to someone who may encounter the message only after time has passed.

Born in 1998, Narisada completed graduate studies in architecture at Tokyo University of the Arts. Her practice moves between architecture and visual art, using interviews, photography and other media to examine domestic space and family relationships.

“I Hope This Finds You Well” runs at COSO in Seoul’s Jung district from Oct. 8–21.

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Maria Kim sayart2022@gmail.com