Platform for Goodbye is a photo taken during my grandfather’s funeral in Japan. What struck me most was the overwhelming, almost theatrical decor of the space: chandeliers hanging above checkerboard yellow-and-black marble floors, velvet blue drapes layered with gold-striped, tasseled curtains. It was maximalism in every direction—opulent, clashing, strangely in bad (but good) postmodern taste.

And at the center of it all: a glowing, hyper-modern LED-lit shrine. Intricately crafted in traditional Shinto woodwork, it stood surrounded by an explosion of modern baroque excess.

The contrast was surreal—and also deeply moving. I remember standing there thinking, I couldn’t have designed a more absurdly perfect art installation if I tried. It was grief staged inside spectacle. Reverence wrapped in kitsch.

"Platform for Goodbye" is a portrait of spiritual contradiction—a space where sacred tradition and contemporary excess collide. It captures the tension of cultural inheritance, the spectacle of ritual, and the strange, layered beauty of saying goodbye.