Phase two of the G6 installation. It has been a great pleasure and also a challenge to undertake this extensive project. I’m not a designer or illustrator but any kind of exhibition or showing of artworks is a kind of collaboration. Even four white walls in a regular art gallery is a specific environment with particular meanings and needs. Art has always had its place and that place is very much a part of the art. The rock walls of a cave, the dark rooms of a castle or palace or the clearing in the forest and these days more often public buildings, urban meeting points or dedicated art museums.

In my studio with assistants and local factories I go about thinking and building and testing my current ideas. I allow myself to envisage possible solutions suggested by both my previous works and what I see in the world around me including other art. The question of what I will do with these results and how they might exist physically in the world has become very much part of that process. In some senses it is pretty random but I welcome that. A gallery asks for an exhibition, a hotel wants a project in their lobby, a pedestrian subway or a new office building. These projects, permanent or temporary become the worldly engine that I link into my studio activity. I don’t exactly make the works to fulfil the requests, rather I feed those demands into my current activity to provide an outlet and give energy to possibilities. Like a hose pipe, these commissions focus the production flow and give it force and direction.

The trick is to use each opportunity to allow me to do what I want and to provide a perfect environment and platform for a work that could exist. If G6 had not asked me to use their amazing spaces and resources in and on their building in Ginza these particular works would not have been made. Others would have happened and the various projects of walking children and sprinting athletes would have played out but this particular collaboration and combination of space and art would not.