We created an installation piece called Finding Perceptions for Wild: Untamed Mind, an exhibition held at the 21_21 Design Sight museum. In this piece, we took on the challenge of using visual communication to convey our own interpretation of the exhibition’s theme, which focuses on “wildness” as the root of human intellect, and explore its true meaning.

The exhibition held at 21_21 Design Sight under the direction of theorist and anthropologist Shinichi Nakazawa. We created the installation piece Finding Perceptions as part of this exhibition. The exhibition focused on the wildness that forms the root of human intellect, and explored the identity and significance of wildness in the modern era, along with methods of drawing out inner wildness from within, through the use of creative pieces and materials.

We attempted to visualize the undeveloped areas of the brain by creating a visual interpretation of the Minakata mandala patterns drawn by the Meiji era historian Minakata Kumagusu. He established his own original scientific methodology, in which returning to a primitive, wild state of mind allows the thinker to see the “dependent origins” of various concepts and things, enabling them to make new discoveries and inventions. We compared these “dependent origins” to the massive network of countless interconnected neurons that forms the human brain.

Visitors were able to subconsciously gain an understanding of the true meaning of the exhibition theme by experiencing the installation piece firsthand. Nonverbal methods of visual communication such as this installation piece can be used in art galleries to provide a richer, more meaningful artistic experience to a further reaching audience, crossing linguistic and cultural barriers.