What do we take away from the actual experience of being together?—Reina Imagawa
At the end of 2019, I took my creative sabbatical in Mexico City. I hadn’t been there since I was a young college student on a study abroad. But the 48 hours I spent in the city had made an indelible impression on me, and that is the vision that kept enticing me back.
My return was lovely. I spent six weeks in the city, and my favorite find was a little cafe called Gato Gordo located near my Airbnb. Having lived in Japan, I am attuned to “true” Japanese things. So when I espied a cafe looking particularly Japanesish, I couldn’t help but wander in. What I found was a lovely social experiment run by the artist Reina Imagawa. She was a recent transplant herself; her space was barely a year old. And her whole goal was to use the space to create community, to incite interaction, and inspire ripples throughout the neighborhood.
Jump to today, March 14, 2022. I am currently laboriously archiving my Instagram account. For the one and only time in my life, I took an age gate facetiously and entered that I was 200 years old. If I had known it was the one and only time it mattered, I would’ve been less feckless. But Instagram has locked me out, and I have lots of personal and professional skepticism around appealing the decision.
