Esquisse Before Prayer is an experimental body of work consisting of I was NOT born to love you and Bear with Me. Centered on the idea of “what emerges from actions repeated like prayer,” the series approaches the structure of prayer by presenting uncertain states before prayer takes form, as well as the traces that appear through the accumulation of repeated gestures.

In I was NOT born to love you, I reheated and deformed bottles of sake and wine that I had consumed myself, giving the glass an irreversible transformation. Through this act, I connected the contradictory behavior of drinking alcohol while wishing to be saved, despite its harm to the body, with my own distance from and discomfort toward prayer. The work questions the gap between action and inner state, as well as the very premise of prayer itself.

Bear with Me is a participatory artwork consisting of hundreds of ready-made glass vials filled with countless small fragments of glass. These fragments are both pieces of my own thoughts and emotions, and the result of unconscious, repetitive action. I position this process as a “pseudo-prayer,” using the work to consider how such an act affects my inner state, and what may occur when these fragments are passed on to others.

In May 2026, as part of the exhibition Fundamental Drives(根源的生欲展), elements of this work developed into a collaborative installation with curator Eri Goho. Within the exhibition space, Bear with Me was transformed into a structure in which viewers could receive the work in exchange for their own wishes. This experience has had a significant influence on my subsequent practice, revealing a structure in which fragments of prayer and emotion are handed over to others, and in which one may unintentionally come to carry something from someone else.