“In many cases, my artwork is also a kind of physical form of resistance to those difficulties of living in... everyday life for this kind of society."

In Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life (2022), Yuriko Saito argues for everyday aesthetics, a theory based on the relational dimension of everyday objects, stressing that objects are inherently connected with our environment, stepping away from the idea of traditional aesthetics as detached contemplation. An artwork and a simple item are valued not only because of their form or beauty but instead because of how they teach us how to respond and enter into a relationship with something outside ourselves. The London-based Japanese artist Kengo Horikoshi presents a visual, relational, and practical interpretation of this theory. Through his sculptures, vases, and functional objects, Horikoshi reorganised the conditions of attention and care, asking us to slow down and pay closer attention by directing our gaze or making our hands conscious of themselves. Through these gestures, Horikoshi produces care by changing the relationship between the person and the object.

For Saito, care requires us to move beyond detached judgement and encounter things in their particularity. Horikoshi’s sculptures operate within the same space, becoming participants in an ethical relationship, a reciprocal model where objects do not simply communicate ideas about happiness or resistance but alter the viewer's physical and perceptual behaviours. The artworks become companions rather than mere objects to be viewed, revealing how we interact with our surroundings, what we notice, and how we might feel.

In Celebration of Individuality (2024), Horikoshi employs attention as a form of care enacted through the body. As a single-flower vase made out of mild steel, bicycle spokes, and glass, in which a single flower stands in the middle, the artwork deliberately guides our eyes to the centre of the piece. At first glance, one cannot really say whether the metal cocoon-like surface of the sculpture resembles a prison or a refuge, as there is a certain ambiguity of meaning. However, the artist intentionally chose this shape; the flower becomes a metaphor for how people are reduced to labels, while their unique features and individuality are overlooked in favour of broader markers such as profession, ethnicity, and gender. Yet, the same structure that allows the flower to be seen also separates it from its surroundings, framing care not necessarily as harmless but as something that can frame, protect, and organise. 

In this sense, the invitation of the Celebration of Individuality (2024) to uniqueness is a complex matter. The flower, separate from the collective, stands in its distinctive colours, traits and shapes, yet it is also isolated, framed and controlled by the same metal structure that makes it visible. By design, a metal vase that holds a single flower creates space for the bloom, but it does not simply celebrate individuality as a condition of freedom. Instead, it asks us to slow down and ponder what kind of structure is required before individuality can be recognised. Horikoshi’s sculpture creates a temporary space in which a single presence can resist being absorbed into a category, ultimately encouraging us to embrace our unique personality traits as a path toward a happier, more fulfilled life.

Recently exhibited in Known Terrain, a London Design Festival 2026 partner exhibition at ANNEX by The Koppel Project, Elephant & Castle, is Pretender (2026), a functional art set comprising a fork, spoon, and knife that explores how small physical disruptions can break us out of daily mindlessness. While Celebration of Individuality (2024) enacts care through the act of looking, these pieces create an atmosphere where care is inseparable from bodily action. Visually, the work takes the familiar form of conventional cutlery, but their traditional handles are replaced with flexible springs, making the simple act of eating unfamiliar and slightly comic. Utensils are no longer obedient extensions of our hands; they bend, delay, and produce resistance, making traditional use difficult and unpredictable. Here Horikoshi introduces a "quiet resistance" that operates through defamiliarisation, a term coined by Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky: by making the familiar, even a ritual, become strange, forcing us to notice something we normally overlook so we can experience it again. This artwork also recalls Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, where the body is understood as the basis of perception, as Pretender (2026) cannot be truly understood by merely looking at it; its meaning depends on the hand learning that an extremely familiar object will no longer behave as expected. Therefore, the work must be experienced through the pressure of the hand, the movements of the wrist, and the instability of the utensil.

In this work, the artist does not intend to offer an escape from contemporary life or the mundane, but by creating a brief interruption, we can see a ritual from new angles. Pretender (2026) stands as a small resistance to the fast-paced, hectic nature of modern life by allowing for a momentary pause, encouraging users to pay attention to small, easily overlooked moments of daily joy, such as the texture of an object, sunlight entering a window, or even how the objects in our space make us feel.

"And also Pretender tries to make a disruption [in] everyday... inattentiveness so that people can be more attentive to small happiness around them," the artist explained in our interview. 

Horikoshi’s objects do not intend to dramatically overthrow the structure of contemporary life; rather, they interrupt it momentarily. Their significance lies in showing that attention is never neutral: what we notice and what we overlook shapes how we live. More recently, some of his pieces have been shown across London, as Celebration of Individuality (2024) was presented at the fourth edition of the SWANFALL Annual Exhibition, ROAR (Rhapsody of August Riot), held from 24 to 29 August 2026 at the Mall Galleries, The Mall. It was also shown in Everything Then is Now II – PLATFORM 0, presented by CAM – Casoria Contemporary Art Museum and SPIRA9 ART at The Old Waiting Room, Peckham Rye Station, from 12 to 14 September, and is now being exhibited in THE WAY, organised by OMMFA at the same venue from 15 to 19 September, both as part of London Design Festival 2026.　In these exhibitions, Horikoshi’s objects can be encountered beyond documentation as works that can only be fully understood depending on scale, proximity, and, in some cases, use. Horikoshi’s resistance is deliberately modest; his sculptures do not ask for a revolution but rather for a pause: a touch, a closer look, a moment of quiet resistance. They propose that attention itself can become a form of care and that even an ordinary object might briefly help us live differently.

Know more about the artist here.

Cover Image:

Pretender (2026). Stainless steel and springs. Dimensions: Fork: H 20.5 × W 3 × D 2 cm; Spoon: H 19.5 × W 4.5 × D 2 cm; Knife: H 21 × W 2 × D 0.8 cm.

All images courtesy of Kengo Horikoshi.