──When watching Audible Museum, your gentle storytelling genuinely draws me into the world of art. What inspired you to start this activity?

I started making the videos in 2021 during the pandemic when mobility restrictions were enforced. At that time, I was working at an art museum, but my shifts were reduced, and I had a lot of free time at home with nothing to do. One day, as I was idly scrolling through TikTok, I came across a video of someone introducing a movie, and I found it really interesting. It was a short video where the person was simply sharing their thoughts on a movie they had watched, but it had over a million views and lots of comments. I was amazed that a personal opinion could be so widely accepted and thought, “If it’s this simple, maybe I could do it too, with just my smartphone.” That was the initial inspiration.

──What made you want to post about art on TikTok? Could you also tell us about your background leading up to the career change?

I always liked art and studied art education in college. I went through teaching training to obtain my art teacher’s license, but I was not comfortable standing in front of a classroom. I realized that teaching wasn’t my calling, so I gave up on becoming a teacher. I started job hunting and joined a steel company as a new graduate, working in accounting. I lived the life of an office worker, working Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM, but gradually, I felt like I was wasting my time. I began to question, “Is it right to spend most of my day on something I don’t want to do?” After working for almost three years, grappling with anxiety and frustration, I became depressed and could no longer go to work.

──You left the company after that.

I was in my late 20s. From there, I decided to “try doing what I love” and took on various part-time jobs. Since I love animals, I worked at a veterinary clinic, and because I enjoy physical activity, I also worked as a personal trainer at a gym. Among those experiences, I found working at a museum best suited me. I started posting videos on TikTok around that time.

──You then decided to focus on being a TikTok creator. Didn’t it take courage to leave your job at the museum to fully commit to being a creator? I’m also curious about the business perspective of making a living solely from videos.

While Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok each have different mechanisms, short videos generate revenue through views. But it has been challenging for me to make a living solely from videos. My main source of income comes from the work I do for museums and companies. Now that I have been using TikTok for about a year, I receive more project offers (PR work for companies). Because of that, it became difficult to adjust my work schedule, and I reached a point where I had to quit my part-time job to take on these projects. Recently, I’ve also been commissioned by museums to create audio guides for exhibitions or host viewing events with other guests in a reserved museum, in addition to video production.

──You must be very busy since you’re regularly creating videos while also doing other work.

In the first year or so, I did everything by myself, which was quite challenging. I would set up a tripod to stabilize my smartphone for shooting. Now, I work with a team of a few people, and we divide the tasks. For example, I have someone handling the filming, and there are other people responsible for paperwork and business card management. But I cannot delegate video editing to others. Each creator’s personality comes through in the finer details of editing, and if I were to outsource that, the viewers might notice a difference from previous videos and could feel something was wrong. So, I get help with everything else to focus on editing.

──You use multiple platforms, so the number of videos you edit must be quite large. How often do you post on TikTok?

Currently, I think I post around 15 videos a month. What happens to many video creators is that the more work you have, the less time you have to create videos (laughs). But I never forget what I was told by one of the more experienced creators: “Even when you’re busy, keep making videos.” I take use travel time and open my laptop to edit wherever I can. I don’t aim for perfection but prioritize getting the content out quickly, even if it feels only about 80% complete.

──You’ve been actively interviewing emerging artists since the early days, in addition to introducing exhibitions and museums. Your videos aim to increase art fans, but they also draw attention to the creators.

Today, we can see wonderful exhibitions and artworks in Japan at any time, but my belief is that for such a fortunate situation to continue, we must also nurture the next generation of artists. By sharing their stories, I hope to provide an opportunity, no matter how small it may be, for emerging artists to become recognized in the world.

(Continue to Part2)

Text: Emi Sato
Photo: Atsuko Kitaura
Photographed with cooperation of: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Translation: Erica Sawaguchi