During this project, Murakami has been exchanging e-mail with Junki MIURA, philosopher mainly studying Leibniz. They have been sending messages about their everyday and also about their recent interests.

Murakami, currently living and working in Kyoto, has been thinking about her hometown in Akita prefecture, as she has been wondering to go back home or not.

‘Home’’, hometown’ or ‘homeland’ can be said, ‘故郷 furusato’ in Japanese. For Murakami, her ‘故郷 furusato’ is not about her parents’ house (as a building), but more about the bitter cold in the snow-covered plains, sceneries of surrounding mountains, or the air at the mouth of the river watching the ocean.

She has been saying, “The English word ‘home’, makes me think about the ‘house’ as a building, but my parents’ house is rebuilt and too new to feel as it is ‘home’.”

The word, ‘home’, is directly imported into Japanese vocabulary as ‘ホーム ho-mu’, and have some specific meanings that slightly differs from the original meanings in English.

Murakami decided to look for another translation for the word ‘故郷 furusato’ to make it fit to her idea.

Miura, her collaborator, helped Murakami to find other English translations for the word, and showed her some paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, which were using the word ‘Reminiscence’ for their title.

As the word ‘Reminiscence’ fitted to the situation of herself, Murakami decided to use the word in the title of this work.

Murakami drew one big painting which seems to be a snow mound, or maybe a snowy mountain. The painting had changed its appearance several times while she had drawn it, and the pile of snow had changed its meaning and the scale every time.

Before starting the painting, Murakami had an interesting encounter with a Japanese man. The man showed her his poem titled, ‘望郷 boukyo‘, which means ‘nostalgia’ in English. The man was from Akita —the same prefecture where Murakami was born— and the poem was about the scenery of snowy Akita. Murakami decided to work on a project related to his poem.

As a project, Murakami looked for collaborators who can compose music and sing. Melodies had been written for the man’s poem, and one simple song was recorded. The song was made of melodies which somehow remind Japanese people the songs they heard in their childhood, and helped to represent the scenery that the man wrote in his poem.