This workshop took place on 2025.12.21 at the Tokyo Art Book Fair (TABF), in the Playground area, during the second week of the event.
Fig. 1: Schedule of the day's events at TABF 2025. OTOMONO's workshop is highlighted in red.
The participants (children aged 5 to 12) were guided in experiencing sound as the primary conduit to imagination and creativity.
Through attentive listening of never-before-heard sounds from the undersea world, they imagined the creatures emitting these without knowing their physical forms.
The aim was to unlock and allow alternative creative acts of imagination that would challenge and complement the main sense in humans (seeing).
The creatures that produced the sounds, as imagined by the participants, were then drawn.
Participants also learned about sound maps and created their own version while listening to a quadraphonic (4.0 surround sound) rendition of an imaginary undersea soundscape.
The participants' creative output has been collated in an edited booklet, available for download.
Fig. 2: Participants gather around the table to listen to undersea sounds.