The term sensitive surface refers to the light-reactive layer in analog photography: the surface that absorbs and holds an image. Ste Marie adopts this metaphor spatially, treating the installation as a surface for emotional trace. In Girard’s photographs, there is a haunting stillness. Spaces appear lived-in but abandoned, intimate yet indifferent. Time hangs in the air.

The result is a fictional bar: enclosed, layered, and deliberately unresolved. Its material language draws loosely from the aesthetics of 1980s Japanese snack bars, but the space is not bound to a specific time or place. Each element is positioned to act as a trace: objects, textures, and cues that suggest prior use and unseen narratives. The room functions less as a setting and more as a composition, inviting the guest to move through a mood rather than a scene.

Presented alongside this immersive experience is an exhibition of pictures, Sensitized Surface, from Girard’s Snack Sakura series taken in Japan between 2017 and 2025. Traversing Japan from Okinawa to Hokkaido, Girard’s pictures document snack bars—anachronistic spaces tethered to Shōwa-era aesthetics and rituals of social exchange. These entertainment bars, known locally as a “snack,” are generally clustered around train stations but can also be found in residential neighbourhoods. Frequented by salarymen, the bars peaked in popularity in the 1980s. Bottles of whiskey and shochu with customer name tags draped around them make regulars feel at home. Karaoke is an integral part of the experience.

Together, the installation and photographic series offer a rarefied portrait of a disappearing cultural landscape, rendered through a collaboration that collapses the boundaries between design, photography, and contemporary art.