I would like to share some thoughts behind my project, When I Close My Eyes and Ears, I Sense You Clearly (link)


Dance x sign language

I am a scenographer, costume designer, and multidisciplinary artist with experience in dance and Japanese sign language.

My journey with sign language began about 15 years ago, during a difficult period in my life when I found it hard to smile and express myself. Around that time, I met deaf people and became fascinated by how they expressed themselves through their whole bodies and facial expressions. I learned a few signs, and I was touched by how happy people were when I tried to communicate with them in their language. This made me curious to learn more, and I began studying Japanese sign language.

As I began communicating through sign language, I gradually found more freedom in my own expression. Around the same time, I was able to return to dance, and I found that dance and sign language complemented each other, opening up new ways for me to express myself.


Universal design

Through spending time with deaf people, I began to notice the various societal barriers they face. This led me to become interested in Universal Design (UD).

I understand UD as an approach to creating designs, environments, and services that are accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities, age, culture, or other differences. Rather than designing for one particular group, it considers diversity from the beginning.

For more than three years, I worked with a volunteer group in Tokyo that explored UD together with people with different abilities and backgrounds.

By visiting museums with visually impaired members, I began to question why ways of engaging with art so often depend mainly on sight and hearing. Even as a sighted person, I sometimes wanted to touch artworks in order to understand and engage them more deeply. 

This made me interested in tactile experience as a way of making art more inclusive, by offering another way to engage with art beyond sight and hearing.


Experimental works in Norway

I came to Norway to study for a BA in Scenography at the Norwegian Theatre Academy. 

In 2021, I created an experimental exhibition where visitors could touch and explore all the artworks, bringing sighted and visually impaired audiences together in the same space.

During the exhibition, I noticed that sighted visitors did not interact with the artworks through their bodies as much as I had expected. I began to wonder if this was because we are so used to understanding the world primarily through sight. This raised a question that has stayed with me: Can we really trust what we see as the whole truth?

In 2023, I continued this research through a pre-project with other artists, exploring how different senses, movement, and vibration could create more accessible ways of experiencing art. We tested the work with different groups, including children, visually impaired people, a deaf person, and sighted and hearing people. If you would like to know more about this process, you can read my previous blog (link).

My artistic goal is to create a space for everyone, where people with and without disabilities can meet and experience art together. However, through the pre-project, I realised that trying to include everyone from the beginning can result in a surface-level approach. I needed to listen more deeply to particular experiences and needs first, so that I could work towards a more meaningful and genuine form of inclusion. I see this project as one step towards my longer-term goal of creating art that can be experienced by everyone.

For my first full-scale project, I chose to work from the perspectives and lived experiences of deaf, blind, and deafblind people. My own encounters with these communities have changed the way I think about perception, communication, and how I experience the world. I also became interested in how different ways of sensing could become a point of connection between people who might not otherwise meet.

At the same time, I was aware of how complex this would be. There is no single experience of being blind or visually impaired: people may be born blind, lose their sight later in life, or have different degrees of vision. The same applies to deaf and deafblind people, whose experiences and ways of communicating can also be very different.

I wanted to create an artistic situation where different ways of sensing could coexist. This led me to a question that became the starting point for the project:

How can an artwork respond to the needs and perspectives of deaf, blind, and deafblind audiences while also opening up new sensory possibilities for sighted and hearing audiences?


Inspiration and Listening

One of the inspirations for this project goes back to a lecture I attended in 2015. Akiko Fukuda, a deafblind person, spoke about her experience of the world. The following is a selection of excerpts from her words, translated from Japanese:

“My world is like everything is coming in a sudden, then suddenly disappears. No light, no sound, and the silence seemed like it would suck you into a black hole which you can never get out from. In the silence, when someone touches me, I find it bright and warm. I feel relieved.”

What stayed with me was the way touch could become something “bright and warm”. It made me think about how a sensory experience can transform our emotional and inner world.


The project was further developed through collaboration with six artists from the fields of performing arts, sound art, and visual art. We discussed ideas, exchanged perspectives, and experimented with different aspects of the work. Together, we shaped and developed the performance through this process.

Deaf, blind and deafblind mentors also took part in testing the work, sharing their experiences and giving feedback, together with invited test audiences from different backgrounds.


Alongside this artistic process, I met with deaf, blind, and deafblind people through visits to different organisations. I listened to their experiences and needs, while also asking about their strengths, perspectives, and what inclusion means to them.

One response that stayed with me was:
“Inclusion is an ongoing process of open dialogue, honest opinions, and compromises everyone can live with.”

These conversations, together with the collaboration and testing process, made me realise how important it is to create spaces where people can meet, listen to one another, and exchange ideas about how we can create more inclusive art and society.

That is why the project brings together an exhibition performance and a workshop, approaching inclusion in two different ways: through artistic experience and through dialogue.

Exhibition performance

The exhibition performance is divided into three different spaces.

1) Information space

The first space presents different forms of information and documentation in Norwegian, English, and Braille, including sign language videos, tactile sign language, and other materials. The interviews introduced in Inspiration and listening are also presented here.

Language is an important part of this project because it is connected to identity. I hope that encountering different languages and forms of communication will spark curiosity and invite audiences to learn more about them.


2) Sound, sign language and body sensation 

In the second space, audiences encounter sound and sign language videos with audio description for visually impaired audiences.

After that, they are invited to wear blindfolds and ear defenders and experience different bodily sensations, drawing their attention to other senses.


3) Tactile and other senses

In the third space, audiences continue wearing blindfolds and ear defenders and move through the space using paths inspired by tactile paving.

For sighted and hearing audiences, this offers an opportunity to temporarily step away from familiar ways of seeing and hearing and encounter unfamiliar ways of sensing and navigating the world.

By shifting how we normally perceive the world, the work draws attention to other senses, imagination, bodily awareness, and trust. Trust is part of this experience — trust in our own senses, in other people, and in the environment around us.

I want the experience to be playful and exploratory, while providing a safe setting in which audiences can encounter uncertainty at their own pace.


Workshop

The workshop is another important part of the project. While the exhibition performance explores inclusion through sensory and artistic experience, the workshop creates a space to discuss accessibility and inclusion in the arts together with people from different backgrounds.

The workshop includes a panel discussion, small-group conversations, and a closing reflection, giving participants an opportunity to exchange experiences, raise questions, and consider what could be changed in the arts and society.


Feedback and future touring

We premiered the work in Fredrikstad in May 2026, and I was grateful to receive different kinds of feedback — both positive responses and suggestions for further development.

For me, the process does not end with the premiere. Each encounter with the work can bring new experiences, questions, and perspectives, whether it is someone’s first encounter or a return to the work. These encounters allow the project itself to change. Just as people cannot be reduced to a single category, I do not want the project to be fixed in one form. I want it to remain open, diverse, and evolving.

I am excited to present the work on 27–30 August in Oslo, 2–3 September in Halden, and 23–25 October in Kirkenes in 2026.