Ride on Shoulder

Tadahiro Gunji’s intimate collages embody the Japanese concept of “MA,” a philosophy that embraces negative space and the intervals between things. Central to his “Collectivity” series is his unique approach to “In-between”—a method of seeking meaning in liminal spaces, especially between dichotomies: past and present, self and environment, presence and absence. Gunji’s practice is a meditation on the intangible, an attempt to capture the fleeting, unspoken sensations that exist in these gaps and translate them into tangible compositions. For Gunji, collage is a way to connect fragments of memory, weaving them into poetic, deeply personal images. His work resists mere reconstruction; instead, he uses it as a vehicle for emotional resonance, layering impressions of time and place. Some of the works in this series take inspiration from the lyrics of Joni Mitchell—her ability to distill complex emotions into song mirroring his own instinct for assembling pieces of the past into something