A Filed Guide to Navigation

Where do roads ultimately lead?

Roads have long been considered foundational physical markers of advancement. They form channels through which movement flows—connecting places, bridging different cultures, shaping civilizations, and allowing the passage of people, stories, and goods.

Metaphorically, roads also symbolize the paths our lives take when we make certain decisions: do we go straight, take the fork in the road, make detours, or turn back completely? Each choice affects our personal growth. Literally and figuratively, both meanings suggest that roads suggest direction— but do not guarantee clarity or arrival at a charted destination. Where these paths will take us—nobody really knows.
Learning to navigate both city roads and life can be a challenge. Both are unpredictable, prone to chaos, susceptible to change; often, they require flexibility and adaptation. Just as we respond when we encounter obstructions, blocks, and various problems on the road, our lives are rarely a single, clean line from point A to point B. Instead, they are a series of overlays—non-linear and complex. The artist, Eri Abe, notes that both are “confusing, layered, and often misaligned”.

A Field Guide to Navigation can be seen as personal notes of the artist, gathered from her experiences, memories, insights, and observations—from watching how people, animals, other beings, and the environment move, navigate, improvise, and adjust within fixed conditions and rigid systems of life. Eri’s works invite reflection on how life seemingly continues outside the lines, marks, borders, and structures we create. Even if systems are flawed or fail, life will persist, adapt, and diverge— forever seeking another way to flow.