Sentiments of Atsuya Tominaga, a sculptor and the founder of “Love Stone Project,” while travelling around the world. Vol. 01 Central Park in New York, USA

What is the “Love Stone Project”? Surprisingly a new concept, it is a kind of art called interactive art wherein people I encounter at different parts of the world polish engraved heart-shaped stones that I bring along with me. Hello, I’m Atsuya Tominaga, a sculptor. Let me tell you about the sentiments I had in different parts of the world through the “Love Stone Project.” Well, you may wonder what the “Love Stone Project” is. I founded the project in the year 2013, a kind of interactive art. I bring along a heart-shaped stone I engraved at my art studio in Kyoto whenever I travel around the world and polish it to be shiny with people I meet. This new interactive artwork was recognized by the public, and I had the honor of Excellence Award at the UBE Biennale in 2013 (a sculpture competition held in Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture), the oldest sculpture competition in Japan. After winning the award, I travelled to the USA, Mexico, Italy, Paris, Vietnam, and to many domestic locations, a total of 80 places and polished the heart-shaped stone with a total of 8,000 people. Occasionally 3 stones were polished at one location, so there is a total of 120 shiny stones. I first want to tell you a story when I traveled to New York on July 29, 2014. I had been to New York a few times to see exhibitions, but it was my first time to go abroad for the heart-shaped stone polishing project. There are two ways to gather participants for the “Love Stone Project.” One way is by having it pre-arranged by schools or museum workshops. This way, there is no worry about zero participants. The other is gathering people “on the spot” to polish the stone without prior notice, like street performers. Ask someone who I meet by chance and polish the stone together. Will the stone shine? I was filled with expectations and anxiety. I decided to gather people “on the spot” in New York like street performers. When I arrived at JFK Airport, I went straight to Manhattan. I stayed at a hotel and the following morning, searched for a place. I thought Central Park is the place to go when in New York, so I chose this place. It’s a huge park. This enormous park stretches 1 km from east to west, 4 km from north to south and is a resting spot in Manhattan. I read about its history and it said that the park was opened in 1873 as the first spot ever proposed by the American landscape architects (landscape experts). So I carried the heart-shaped stones to the park and found that despite being a weekday, the park was crowded with kindergarteners on their field trip and adult cyclists. I walked around for a while and on the lawn, I found an exposed bedrock that may have weighed a few dozen tons. “Why not polish heart-shaped stones on a bedrock in New York.” This was the inspiration I had, and I ran up to the top of the bedrock.