RUI MINEMURA

「絵の具のようなもの、道具のようなもの。」は、“身の回りの素材”や“つくること”との向き合い方を問い直し、表現した作品であり、ひらかれたプロジェクトである。全国の土地から集めた「土」を絵の具として扱い、身近な素材でつくった、道具になりきらない“不器用な道具”で描くことで、「つくるとは何か？」「素材とは何か？」という根源的な問いを立ち上げた。

土は土地の記憶を抱えた素材であり、粒子、色、触感、乾燥の仕方まで一つひとつ違う。制作した道具もまた、「何に使うか不明」「持ちにくい」「予測できない」といった不確かさを抱えている。その思い通りにならなさの中で私たちは、目で正解を探すより先に、手触りや抵抗から判断し、素材と交渉しながら進むことになる。
本作では、土や素材の情報を可視化し、その背景や文脈を丁寧に示すことで、参加者が素材と“出会い直す”導線を設計した。

便利さと効率に最適化された社会では、「自分で考え、創造し、素材と向き合う」機会が減っている。だからこそ本作は、正しさや最適解から距離をとる。
最適解を高速に出せる技術が増えるほど、ためらい・調整・失敗から生まれる行為こそが人間の領域になる。そこで「うまく描けない／正解がない」状況を意図的につくり、土や素材の言い分に揺さぶられながら描く体験によって、既成の制作プロセスを揺らし、人間の創造行為を再起動する。

土や素材を組み替え、“絵の具のようなもの”と“道具のようなもの”として提示することは、身体が思考する瞬間を呼び戻すための試みでもあるのだ。

“Almost Paint,Almost Tools.” is both an artwork and an open project that questions—and gives form to—how we relate to the materials around us and to the act of making. By treating soil collected from regions across Japan as “paint,” and drawing with makeshift, “clumsy tools” made from familiar materials—tools that never fully become tools—the work raises fundamental questions: What does it mean to create? What is a material?

Soil carries the memory of the land. Each sample differs in its particles, color, tactility, and even the way it dries. The tools created for this work also embrace uncertainty: their purpose is unclear, they are awkward to hold, and their behavior is unpredictable. Within this resistance—where things do not respond as intended—we move forward not by searching for a correct answer with our eyes, but by judging through touch and friction, negotiating with the material as we go.
In this work, information about the soil and materials is made visible, and their backgrounds and contexts are carefully presented, designing a pathway for participants to “encounter” materials anew.

In a society optimized for convenience and efficiency, opportunities to think, create, and directly engage with materials are diminishing. That is precisely why this work keeps a deliberate distance from correctness and optimal solutions. The more technologies emerge that can produce optimal answers at high speed, the more actions born from hesitation, adjustment, and failure become distinctly human.
For this reason, the work intentionally creates situations in which “you cannot draw well” and “there is no correct answer.” Through the experience of drawing while being unsettled by the “voices” of soil and materials, it disrupts established creative processes and reactivates human creativity.

Reconfiguring soil and everyday materials and presenting them as “something like paint” and “something like a tool” is also an attempt to restore the moment in which the body thinks.