I can’t say when it started but I have always called my favourite thing “my cigarette end”: something that I wish to light up to see the colour of its light and to feel its smell even after many years, even when it gets old or broken, because it makes me feel time, time during which it exists, and time passing before and after it. And I have always liked something useless like a cigarette end, so it’s only natural that I call my favourite thing like this.
Come to think of it, in the film I made as a student in France, a girl gathers cigarette butts on the street. The girl is actually me because I was the only student in the cinema club. Some people thought my film told about a Japanese girl who lost her mind to the point of picking up cigarette butts because of her lonely life in France, which is absolutely not my intention, but, anyway, let’s get back on track, yes, I have always liked cigarette end-ish things.
Why do I like them? I should have several reasons, but the first simple reason is that I feel myself useless too. Since my childhood, it never left me alone, the feeling that I miss something, or I have something I mustn’t have had, and it comes to call as a nasty voice saying to me “you shouldn’t have been here. It’s a mistake.” So I tried, tried hard to become anyone other than myself so that I would be allowed to exist in this world, I tried hard so that somebody would forgive me one day, but for what? What did I do? Anyway, I kept trying hard to be something which is not useless. Did I become useful? Of course not! I am still useless as I was a kid, but I am still here. Naturally, I have sympathy for the useless.
In autumn 2023, I decided to make my first zine, “Cigarette end”. Making a zine is an act of resistance and liberation for me. What exists on me such as words, thoughts, and images is not necessarily important, so I can ignore it if I want, or I can keep it only with me, but somehow I need to give a certain form to what exists on me, which is stronger than my will; it shouts inside “hey! Why you hide me! Get me out!” Of course, I should make a place for it while feeling a big apprehension since I take out something useless! Through the creation of zines, I resist fear, at the same time I release myself from the curse that I shouldn’t have existed.
Making a zine is also an act of bricolage. I collect useless things and make a new useless thing by them. However, this absolute useless I create might not be useless for someone, that is a miracle!
That’s the reason why I make zines, I want to see a miracle. I keep collecting cigarette butts like the girl in the film I made over 10 years ago. If the shadows hide the light, the useless may hide something precious, like rough stones having a seed of light inside. I would like to light them up. Certainly, this is my way to love this world and probably to love myself as well.