Travel is the source of creativity in both art and business. Business owner Masamichi Toyama explains

Inspiration from Art Basel, one of the world's largest art fairs

OnTrip JAL Editorial Department (hereinafter, JAL): This June, you went to Art Basel, one of the world's largest art fairs, held annually in Switzerland.

Masamichi Toyama (hereinafter, Toyama): There is also Art Basel Hong Kong, which is held in Hong Kong, so I go there every year. However, this year was also the year of the contemporary art exhibition Documenta, which is held once every five years in Kassel, Germany, so I headed to Art Basel in Switzerland to visit both. There were not only two-dimensional paintings, but also many works that effectively used three dimensions, such as installations and performing arts, which made me think. There was also a work that had a mechanism where you sat down in a square chair-like box placed in the corridor and realized that it was a speaker that played music, and it was very interesting to see the unexpected encounters and discoveries.

JAL: It seems like you came back having been inspired by a lot of things during your trip.

Toyama: We at Smiles have presented several art works so far. For the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2015 we created "Niigata Heart-Piercing Rice Soup for 300 Yen" in collaboration with DENSO, and for the Setouchi Triennale 2016 we created "Lemon Hotel". We are planning to participate in similar art festivals next year as well. This trip was inspiring for me as a creator, and it really rekindled my creative drive. Ideas often come to me in the early hours of the morning, when I'm in a state between dream and reality, and this time again, after returning home, I came up with a certain idea. I can't talk about it yet though (laughs).

We want both art and soup to provide new encounters and discoveries.

JAL: I think that discovering new value through travel is something that Smiles and Toyama-san value very much. The Lemon Hotel allows you to stay inside an artwork, waking up surrounded by a soft yellow light in a room covered in fabric dyed with the branches and leaves of the local specialty, Teshima lemon. I think that the importance of such "encounters" is also thoroughly emphasized in Soup Stock Tokyo's bowl of soup.

Toyama: That's right. This is also related to the three-dimensional works I mentioned earlier, but when creating a work in a rural area, especially in a vast area, it is necessary to weave the space and time of the place into the work. The journey to the place, the view that opens up the moment you arrive, the scorching hot summer sun and the sounds of cicadas echoing through the trees - I hope that my work can play a role in fixing, as if hitting a pin, the experience of traveling in an extraordinary environment that cannot be experienced in the city.

Memories that contain space and time are plotted on a map. We hope that the soup we make will be something similar. We would be happy if the soup could function as a pin that sticks into the "map of experience."

JAL: Travel and business are inseparably linked.

Toyama: We have previously done a work-study exchange with Benesse. There is a facility called "Benesse House" operated by Benesse on Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea that combines a contemporary art exhibition space with a hotel, and our employees went there and welcomed Benesse employees. What I would like to try in the future is to set up bases here and there in Japan and work in a different place for about one season of the year, like the Edo period's alternate attendance system. Even if you are stuck for ideas, you will be able to refresh yourself and make new discoveries. I am thinking about how I would like to be able to "work like you are traveling".