Nite hi WORKS

“Nite hi WORKS” is an art project by artist Minoru Inayoshi and actor Azusa Watanabe. They are engaged in creating upcycled art works and spaces (art renovation), utilizing waste materials, and operating an art community lounge. The concept is “changing something from the original to something now” by unexpectedly and freely adding different languages ​​(ideas) from different eras, cultures and many other things “different.”

In 2010, Inayoshi and Watanabe encountered an old building of a former bank in Wakaba town, Naka ward, an area where multinational people live. They lived there, operating an art space “nitehi works.” Relocated to a two-story old private house in Sueyoshi town, on the back street of the former office in 2017, they have expanded a “turning art lounge” named “Up cycling love at art” or “Yutakana Ibasyo” in the town.

Currently, it has four permanent bases, including “nitehi works”, “BankART AIR R16”, “Kitanaka Brick”, and “Taisei Porch,” nurturing the individuality of each area while traveling around Yokohama. The works are displayed on travelling exhibitions in the town. They have created “everyday scenery” from “something that is originally something different.”

1. Upcycle art using waste materials

The work of “Nite hi WORKS” is an up-cycle art that makes use of waste materials with the concept of changing things “from something else” to “something now.” Their works tell us widely the existence of “values” and “resources” created by rethinking things from different perspectives. Such examples include an art space using a bank lounge, tables made of outside sign boards and skateboards made of discarded wood.

2. Art that changes the scenery created with people living in the town

Nitehi WORKS holds art workshops that parents and children can enjoy in parks and art lounges of the town, and rediscover the value and resources of the town with the people who live there and change the scenery of the town. They take initiatives to increase the number of city creators and provide opportunities to discover the charm of the city through participatory art projects.

3. Town development to connect different communities

A turing art lounge “Yukaina Ibasho” of Nitehi works utilizes the entire city as an art space. It serves as a bridge between people in the new city and the old city, where they usually do not interact, growing and spreading the number of collaborators. In order to keep a cycle of the circular economy, someone needs to feel “value”’ for what someone else considers “garbage.” It is necessary for people with different perspectives to meet. The art lounge plays the role.