By putting a border line between life and death, we separate the world of death from our world of life, casting the dead away into the "world of oblivion".

I was worried that I, the artist Morimura, would have conflicts with the participating artists and develop a strenuous relationship with them. But the actual experience was completely the opposite. The artists accepted my requests rather positively, because it came from a fellow artist. I strongly feel that the fact that my being an artist avoided the usual curator vs artist tension, and led to creating a positive atmosphere as well as developing a solidarity amongst artists and building a community for artists.

I have always thought that it would be nice to not complete the exhibition in one place and close off the others as a result. Exhibitions should connect with various locations and promote exchange and interaction.

I first wrote down all the phenomena that have emerged in contemporary society that I thought were related to this theme ["sea of oblivion"], and then sorted them out by grouping them into islands of ideas.

I put priority on such artists who focus on the world of "oblivion" and who consider placing themselves into the world of "oblivion" as fundamental to their attitude for their expression.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raised cautions against mass media, especially the television, which dumb down human sensibilities and coerce everybody's thoughts into a single uniform value, allowing human to forget the fundamental action of "having one's opinion". As a result, the society deteriorates. I decided to exhibit [Edward] Kienholz's work which features television as its subject, as well as the Big Double Cross as works that represent this warning.

When we talk about contemporary art and contemporary artists, we usually imagine artists who are alive. But I feel very uncomfortable about placing a border between living artists and dead artists.