As part of Art Saitama 2023, which has the main theme of "We", eight women artists who create works on the theme of women's lives will come together. We would like to share with visitors life courses that everyone faces in life, such as disease, aging, death, birth, and the rebirth of the soul, from a woman's point of view.

This exhibition focuses on the theme of "Women's Lives," and traces the process from birth to the end of life through the works of artists who express themselves from a woman's perspective and position.

The artists in this exhibition range in age from their 30s to over 60, and their techniques are diverse. By looking at their diverse interactions with life and death, people of all ages will have an opportunity to reflect on their own lives. In particular, the exhibition aims to change our social consciousness from a gender perspective by positively reassessing women's lives through the expressions of women artists, whose careers are often interrupted by epochal life experiences such as pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing. The artists will also share with the audience a hope for rebirth, comforting of the soul and the caring of the body by using art to confront the negative experiences of illness and death, which are usually relegated to the periphery of our consciousness, and becoming aware that they can happen to anyone; leading people to look at life from a minority perspective.

MATSUSHITA Seiko uses symbolic objects such as a house, a tongue, a boxing glove, and feathers to bring up the pain of women's lives. ICHIJO Miyuki's installation of prints, watercolor paintings and fabrics capture the everyday murmurs of middle-aged women through words and pictures. KISHI Kaoru will present an exquisitely crafted beaded heart (regenerative medicine, the price of life), while KAN Mika will reconsider life from multiple perspectives with photographs of dolls on the shocking theme of "If a love doll gets pregnant" and photographs of dolls in memory of a deceased child. HOMMA Mei, who is based in Indonesia, reflects on the changes in women's bodies and the social customs and systems surrounding them in Japan and Indonesia through her own experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. JINUSHI Maiko confronts the fundamental question, "Where do we go after we die? Meanwhile, SUE Tomoko continues to depict the sea and sky of Kudaka Island, called Niraikanai, or “the island where God resides”, based on her experience of being healed by the sea of Kudaka Island, Okinawa, which she visited after the death of her mother. YAMAOKA Sakiko shares the voices of various people through video interviews that question the relationship between the individual's position and the public. During the exhibition, Yamaoka will also engage in a participatory work that will incorporate the audience's own voices.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　KOKATSU Reiko