Shichiin Jinja

In the era of Musashi Province, people survived through their perception of nature and mutual cooperation.
This capacity for perception and mutual support not only sustained life under harsh conditions but also defined their understanding of the essence of living.
Perception was not merely a reaction to the environment; it served as a fundamental link between survival and life itself.

However, by the late Edo period, as modernization progressed, modes of perception began to shift.
A growing population flowed into the developing metropolis, and the delicate and layered forms of perception were gradually replaced by speed and utilitarianism.
The small village of Shichimorimura, once thriving through its deep-rooted sensitivity to the world, slowly withdrew from perceptible reality.

This withdrawal was not a physical disappearance, but a result of people losing the ability to perceive the village in its original way.
As perceptual capacities declined, connections—between individuals, between humans and nature, between people and their communities—began to sever.
The deity of perception enshrined at the village center consequently fell into a deep slumber, and with it, the Shichiin Mori—those entities embodying different facets of life’s essence—also entered dormancy.

As time advanced into the modern era,
in the vast and intricate urban environment of Tokyo, individuals faced profound fragmentation and isolation.
In response, a slow reawakening of desire began: a search for the texture of life, for the forgotten ties between people, and for ways to reestablish a perceptual relationship with the world.
These silent searches gradually accumulated within the city, forming an invisible yet persistent call.

Within this process, the slumbering deity of perception offered a faint response.
Though the deity itself remained dormant, a trace of its lingering power was enough to release the Shichiin Mori.
The Shichiin Mori integrated themselves into the urban landscape, not to save or command, but to guide:
to encourage individuals to re-experience, to re-sense, and to reweave delicate connections with the world, with themselves, and with one another.

Shichiin Jinja, likewise, continues to exist in a transformed manner.
Although no longer manifesting as a tangible physical location,
it endures as a mediator of perception and connection, maintaining an invisible yet continuous relationship with the city and its inhabitants.
Every genuine experience and every faintly perceived interaction within the urban flow constitutes a subtle reinforcement of this ongoing connection,
and simultaneously serves as a silent offering to the deity of perception.

Tokyo Diary was established within this context.
Through recording their experiences and perceptions, individuals organize and preserve fragments of their fragmented urban lives.
Each entry in the Tokyo Diary traces a personal line of perception, while also embodying the faint but ongoing links between individuals, the city, and Shichiin Jinja.
Through continuous recording and offering, the delicate web of perception, once nearly dissolved, is gradually reawakened and sustained.