awai - in between

The Japanese word awai describes the subtle space that lies between things. A state that is neither fixed nor entirely absent. The film moves through these thresholds, observing moments where anonymity and intimacy coexist and where quiet observation becomes a way of being.

In Akihabara, a car wrapped in fabric turns into a silent sculpture of waiting. Caught between function and disappearance, it embodies a stillness in which the everyday slips into abstraction.

The Institute for Nature Study is a pocket forest in the heart of Tokyo, a fragment of nature breathing between the city’s rhythms. The Meguro Sky Garden floats like an island above the city. Between concrete and vegetation unfolds a quiet wilderness, a dialogue between architecture and growth, a state of suspension between earth and sky. In the smoking area beneath the office towers of Tamachi, people stand side by side and share a brief moment. No one speaks, no one meets another’s gaze. Between smoke and glass, body and concrete, an anonymous closeness takes shape.

Each of these places carries its own sense of awai, a rhythm of perception unfolding between seeing and being seen, between presence and disappearance.

Shot during the Artist Residency AIR3331 in Tokyo.
2025
16mm
2,42 min