Post it empty,
Due to scratches, marks, and postmarks
Art completed in mid-air.

The only-box series is a "book box" created by poet Takashi Hiraide by arranging various stamps, stickers, and sometimes stamps. The box is mailed empty, and is completed by scratches, scuffs, and postmarks. No two are alike.

This "Lonely Scombroid" is a bookcase with old stamps of Japanese fish and finished with postmarks. The typeface is Jean-Luc. It was mailed to the Japan Foundation, Toronto for the "Takashi Hiraide Exhibition" held in Toronto in 2016.

Takashi Hiraide is a poet, author, and book designer. Although he published many books of poetry, including "For the Fighting Spirit of Walnuts," he soon gave up on the poetry and publishing world, and began exploring other possibilities, such as publishing himself, by presiding over the "via wwalnuts" series, in which he sends out books with a postage stamp attached.

Just as the works undergo unexpected changes in the kiln, this only-box series is completed by accidental scratches and postmarks by the postal worker after being posted in a red post. You won't know until you actually receive it. That's what's interesting about it. The front of the box is already engraved with text, which may be a reflection of the repeated printing of the postal service as a publication.



only-box «Lonely Scombroid»

box for 9 brochures of via wwalnuts.
limited to 1.
Type: Jean-Luc
specially designed with semi-old Japanese stamps of fishes & the postal cancellation mark.
first sent to Japan Foundation Toronto for TH's exhibition in Autumn of 2016.
then to you as a book post in crystal parcel after the exhibition.


Text by Osamu Kushida