When I was a child, I repurposed a simple program meant to teach the fundamentals of coding into a tool where I was (for the first time in my life) empowered to create immersive stories and interactive adventures inspired by some of my favorite pop culture icons of the time.

As a teenager, I learned the basic principles of visual and interaction design by teaching myself how to build videogame levels. This challenging yet rewarding journey equipped me with the foundational skills I would later use in both my professional and personal creative practices. Despite feeling confined in my small hometown, the worlds I brought to life provided the perfect outlet for me to escape and immerse myself within.

Having grown up in rural and suburban settings, moving to a major city was a brand new experience for me. I would often take aimless walks and felt compelled to explore every inch of the streets that were now my backyard. It was then that I purchased my first camera and began to capture what I saw, immediately observing my world through an entirely different lens.

In college, I built a toilet stall in a busy entryway to blur the boundary between public and private spaces. Sitting in my stall, I chatted with strangers and offered them Tootsie Rolls as a cheeky thank you. Midway through, promoters for an upcoming Andy Samberg event placed a poster on my door, unknowingly transforming it into the best free advertisement for the show.

One rainy night in Tokyo, I ducked for cover into a bar where I met and took a portrait of the enchanting bar owner Kuro, who told me stories about the Shinjuku Golden Gai Art Waves project she had founded in 1999. She described how within the nearby maze of narrow alleyways and bars artists would display their work, including her friend, frequent patron, and prolific photographer Daido Moriyama. Kuro's determination to just do things her way inspired me to create my very own pop-up art gallery and Capp Casa was born.

After producing a number of art shows with Capp Casa, I wanted to try something a bit more experiential. I founded Art of Listening as an immersive event series where people collectively listen to an album in its entirety and connect through a curated in-person experience.

While researching the history of Bar Kuro, I learned Daido had once covered every surface of it with his photos for Kuro's inaugural art waves event, and that this incident has since been memorialized in a number of surprising ways: from a perfect full-scale replica of the bar inside the Grand Palais in Paris, to a functioning pop-up bar in an upscale London department store, and featured in the stunning anime Tekkonkinkreet.

With the success of Capp Casa and Art of Listening, I was reflecting on the significance of my chance encounter with Kuro and decided to gift her a print of the portrait I had taken the night we met. She had the print framed in glass for protection, and placed it in the very last area of free space in the bar – directly above an iconic photo of a bloody shoe shot by Daido himself. Although Kuro has since passed away, the bar has reopened and is now run by her son who has kept the portrait of Kuro hanging in the exact same spot to this day.

My fascination with urban exploration, photography, and experience design all coalesced to form the story of Capp Casa. The history of it is forever entwined with the history of Bar Kuro and I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to meet the wonderful Kuro. Yet, the outcome of our encounter has yielded more than just a pop-up art gallery. Capp Casa grew into something much bigger – it became my home, or at least the closest version to it that I've ever known. Recognizing this, I've begun production on my first feature-length documentary in which I explore what it means for people from all over the world to build a home. Thank you, Kuro.