“Untitled” (Stress Ball)

“Untitled” (Stress Ball)
2026
Polyurethane foam with printed text
Variable size 

This is a relational art piece using globe-shaped stress balls printed with the phrase “All people should be engaged based on their capability.” Visitors can each take one home. Squeezed to relieve stress, these balls are widely distributed as corporate promotional novelties in America today, valued for their cost-effectiveness. The printed phrase is a line attributed to John Manjiro(1827–1898), the first Japanese person to live in America, who drifted there after being shipwrecked from a poor fishing village in Tosa. Having lived in a rigid, feudal class society, what moved Manjiro most in America was that people were fairly judged by their capability and character. After crossing to America he graduated at the top of his school and, earning the trust of his crewmates, rose to become first mate on a whaling ship. The ideal that a single castaway once found as hope—that people should be fairly measured by their individual capability—has, over a century and a half, become a self-evident condition covering the world. And it is now another name for the pressure that drives us without rest, demanding we prove ourselves endlessly.