Ai Degaito "To Choose What Remains"
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Ai Degaito
CADAN Otemachi will present “To Choose What Remains,” a solo exhibition by Ai Degaito organized by KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, on view from November 17 (Tuesday) to December 5 (Saturday), 2026.
Born and raised in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, a village with deep ties to ceramics, Degaito has researched glazes since her teens. At kilns and ceramics facilities across Japan, she encountered discarded pottery piled high. Once fired at high temperatures, clay cannot return to its original state. Its durability and irreversibility led her to reflect on the profound consequences of the human cycle of making, using, and discarding objects.
Alongside these concerns, her practice is driven by an enduring fascination with glaze itself. She burns materials from her surroundings—plants, bones left after meals, letters, clothing—and uses their ashes to make glazes. She experiments with mixtures and firing conditions, returning again and again to the emergence of unexpected colors and textures. This exploration of how things can take on other forms leads her to a larger question: how far can we intervene in preserving what would otherwise disappear, and in choosing what to keep and what to let go?
The exhibition introduces this practice through Ikudo, Glaze, and Heart, her new venture into jewelry.
In Ikudo, Degaito repeatedly subjects materials to heat, drawing out the many expressions of glaze that emerge from slight variations in conditions. Observing unexpected changes and exploring their causes, she moves between what she can control and transformations that exceed her intentions. For this exhibition, with the cooperation of Yurakucho Art Urbanism YAU and Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd., she presents new works made from materials that have served their purpose, gathered from the daily lives of people working in the Daimaruyu area (Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho), where CADAN Otemachi is located.
Lunch containers left after meals that nourished people and sustained their afternoon’s work. Documents bearing personal information. In these everyday objects, Degaito sees traces of lives lived, work done, and time passed. Each of the countless people moving through the city has memories and stories of their own. By reducing these used objects to ash and transforming them into glaze, she seeks to preserve traces of an individual’s presence as color and luster, even after the original forms and words have disappeared.
In Glaze, Degaito uses heat-resistant carborundum kiln shelves as a ground, presenting glaze itself as the object of contemplation. These boards can also be crushed and reused as ingredients in glaze. The layering of colors, the boundaries where they merge, the textures and sheen of a material familiar as a coating for vessels: attending to each reveals traces of its transformation through heat. By creating glaze directly on the very tools that support its firing, these works convey the expressions of matter that Degaito has explored through years of research.
The exhibition also introduces Heart: small, wearable works that distill the things Degaito has chosen to preserve. A cherished keepsake, or an object holding the memory of time spent with someone. In a world of constant change, she selects what she still wishes to keep close, transforming glaze made from its ashes into works worn against the body. Her work with the cremated remains of loved ones grows out of the same practice.
For Degaito, making a work wearable is a way of carrying the act of preservation into everyday life: moving with what one has kept, touching it, and sharing time with it. This approach echoes the longstanding human desire to keep memories and prayers close through personal adornment.
Degaito holds together a sense of awe and unease at creating things that will not return to the earth, and a belief in the preciousness of preserving an irreplaceable presence. Through the transformation of materials, she continues to explore the choices at the heart of To Choose What Remains. We invite visitors to encounter the rich expressions of glaze and the choices entrusted to each work.
Born and raised in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, a village with deep ties to ceramics, Degaito has researched glazes since her teens. At kilns and ceramics facilities across Japan, she encountered discarded pottery piled high. Once fired at high temperatures, clay cannot return to its original state. Its durability and irreversibility led her to reflect on the profound consequences of the human cycle of making, using, and discarding objects.
Alongside these concerns, her practice is driven by an enduring fascination with glaze itself. She burns materials from her surroundings—plants, bones left after meals, letters, clothing—and uses their ashes to make glazes. She experiments with mixtures and firing conditions, returning again and again to the emergence of unexpected colors and textures. This exploration of how things can take on other forms leads her to a larger question: how far can we intervene in preserving what would otherwise disappear, and in choosing what to keep and what to let go?
The exhibition introduces this practice through Ikudo, Glaze, and Heart, her new venture into jewelry.
In Ikudo, Degaito repeatedly subjects materials to heat, drawing out the many expressions of glaze that emerge from slight variations in conditions. Observing unexpected changes and exploring their causes, she moves between what she can control and transformations that exceed her intentions. For this exhibition, with the cooperation of Yurakucho Art Urbanism YAU and Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd., she presents new works made from materials that have served their purpose, gathered from the daily lives of people working in the Daimaruyu area (Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho), where CADAN Otemachi is located.
Lunch containers left after meals that nourished people and sustained their afternoon’s work. Documents bearing personal information. In these everyday objects, Degaito sees traces of lives lived, work done, and time passed. Each of the countless people moving through the city has memories and stories of their own. By reducing these used objects to ash and transforming them into glaze, she seeks to preserve traces of an individual’s presence as color and luster, even after the original forms and words have disappeared.
In Glaze, Degaito uses heat-resistant carborundum kiln shelves as a ground, presenting glaze itself as the object of contemplation. These boards can also be crushed and reused as ingredients in glaze. The layering of colors, the boundaries where they merge, the textures and sheen of a material familiar as a coating for vessels: attending to each reveals traces of its transformation through heat. By creating glaze directly on the very tools that support its firing, these works convey the expressions of matter that Degaito has explored through years of research.
The exhibition also introduces Heart: small, wearable works that distill the things Degaito has chosen to preserve. A cherished keepsake, or an object holding the memory of time spent with someone. In a world of constant change, she selects what she still wishes to keep close, transforming glaze made from its ashes into works worn against the body. Her work with the cremated remains of loved ones grows out of the same practice.
For Degaito, making a work wearable is a way of carrying the act of preservation into everyday life: moving with what one has kept, touching it, and sharing time with it. This approach echoes the longstanding human desire to keep memories and prayers close through personal adornment.
Degaito holds together a sense of awe and unease at creating things that will not return to the earth, and a belief in the preciousness of preserving an irreplaceable presence. Through the transformation of materials, she continues to explore the choices at the heart of To Choose What Remains. We invite visitors to encounter the rich expressions of glaze and the choices entrusted to each work.
Schedule | Nov 17 (Tue) 2026-Dec 5 (Sat) 2026 Opening Hours Information
Opening Reception Nov 20 (Fri) 2026 17:00 - 19:00 | ||||
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.kanakawanishi.com/exhibition-cadan-2026-ai-degaito | ||||
| Venue | Cadan Otemachi https://cadan.org/ | ||||
| Address | 1F, 2-6-3 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0004 | ||||
| Access | 5 minute walk from the Nihonbashi exit of JR Tokyo Station, 5 minute walk from exit B2 at Mitsukoshimae Station on the Ginza and Hanzomon lines. |
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