As we approach Ash Wednesday and the 2026 Lenten season, Makoto Fujimura's vision of slow art, hospitality, and kenotic creativity invites us to resist the speed, fear, and fragmentation of this cultural moment by learning again how to pay attention, to rest, and to become people capable of holding one another with care even amid grief, violence, and uncertainty.

In this conversation, fine artist Makoto Fujimura reflects on art, trauma, hospitality, and the slow practices that help us remain human in fractured times.

"I wanted this book to serve as a portal… to recognize something as maybe ordinary or as extraordinary as holding your granddaughter."

Together with Mark Labberton, Fujimura reflects on art as generativity, kenosis, and the healing practice of attention.

Together they discuss slow art, Ground Zero and trauma, Japanese aesthetics and hospitality, dandelions and attention, Sabbath rest, and self-emptying love. They explore how making art helps people remain human amid violence, polarization, and technological acceleration.

Episode Highlights

"I wanted this book to serve as a portal… to recognize something as maybe ordinary or as extraordinary as holding your granddaughter."

"We are not just making… we are being made."

"God is indeed the host."

"Art is… a way for us to navigate our complex times."

"It is okay for me to give my life away."

About Makoto Fujimura

Makoto Fujimura is a contemporary artist, writer, and cultural thinker known for "slow art" rooted in Japanese Nihonga painting traditions. His work explores generativity, culture care, theology of making, and the relationship between beauty and suffering. Having lived and worked near Ground Zero after 9/11, his artistic practice reflects themes of trauma, hospitality, and new creation. He is the author of Art Is: A Journey into the Light and other books on art, faith, and culture.

Helpful Links And Resources

Art Is: A Journey into the Light https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300273656/art-is/

Makoto Fujimura Website https://makotofujimura.com/art

International Arts Movement https://iamculturecare.com/

Art and Faith: A Theology of Making https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300285482/art-and-faith/

Show Notes

• Lifelong friendship, artistic influence
• Slow art as resistance to acceleration
• Minneapolis demonstrations; dignity across legal status; 50,000 people marching in extreme cold as witness to human worth
• "I was holding Jane."
• Art as portal into ordinary life
• Making and being made simultaneously
• Scientist father, generative language framework
• Kamakura childhood aesthetics
• Insider–outsider identity formation
• Japanese language, visual thinking, layered perception
• Ground Zero studio years after 9/11 shaping imagination, community awareness, and artistic responsibility
• Hospitality as artistic and theological practice
• Survivor identity discovered through conversation with Columbine survivor
• "God is indeed the host."
• Attention, "minute particulars," and gratitude amid suffering
• Dandelions meditation: beauty in unwanted places; seeds surrendering to wind; healing compacted soil; overlooked gifts of creation
• Slow art practice: pausing, observing, letting meaning emerge rather than forcing conclusions
• Sabbath, rest, and imagination as resistance to productivity-driven identity
• Kenosis paintings, gold, generosity, and self-emptying love as cultural antidote
• "It is okay for me to give my life away."

#MakoFujimura

#SlowArt

#CultureCare

#FaithAndArt

#Hospitality

#Kenosis

#CreativeProcess

#SpiritualFormation

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.