Interview by Buki Szecsanov
Photography by Maya Eleonora Silva
What is your earliest memory?
It’s a memory within a memory. There was a sweater that I got when I was five or six years old, which had a buffalo print on it and I was like, wait, flashback. And then I remembered when I was two years old and my parents took me to the US and I saw a buffalo on a field there.
Would you consider yourself a nostalgic
person? I feel like there are a lot of moments when I feel nostalgic, especially because I’m Japanese. When you’re walking around in the countryside in Japan I find a lot of nostalgia in the small details. Thinking about the past through small things like smells and visuals. I like to keep going, but I also love looking back. How would you describe your family? I have a bit of a complicated situation with my family, but at the same time I grew up with a lot of love. Now everyone in my family is doing different things, but at the end of the day that’s what made me who I am today. So it’s chaotic, very independent, but then there’s love. That’s the Suzuki family. What did you want to be when you were younger? When I graduated kindergarten we recorded videos on cassette tapes and there I said I wanted to be a patissier because they make people happy. That’s the first dream I had.
Do you daydream a lot?
I’m very delusional. As a kid I loved making up stories and playing different kinds of people. I can be a different person every day, I’m not just Ako. For example when I speak English or Japanese or Italian I’m a slightly distinct person. And then I daydream a lot on the way to work, on the train or on a flight, whatever.
Was there a defining moment in your life that shifted your perspective?
The day my mom told me that my dad was cheating on her 10 years ago and she didn’t know. That blew my mind you know? It was a very very shocking thing. I was kind of going crazy about it, and it sounds kind of tragic or whatever, but then actually I feel like it’s a life lesson I got from them. I think this was kind of a turning point, because it was right before I moved to Italy. So it was like life before and after Europe. But at the same time I don’t want to say that that’s the only point in my life that changed me in a way, but it was definitely an important moment.
How would you describe your art? When someone asks me what I do I’m always like I do so many things you know? But the connection between all of it is that everything I make is really present. The performances I do are just me, right now, in this moment. So yeah, in any form of art I really put the importance of feeling present.
