It has been four years since the END ALS Association was established, and two years since the ALS Ice Buck-et Challenge, intended to raise awareness of ALS, swept the world in the summer of 2014. The Ice Bucket Challenge indeed helped to raise awareness of the existence of ALS, but today, most people remember the challenge, but not what the disease is about. In order to communicate that ALS is a disease that takes away one’s ability to move, Hiro wanted to use a method that had impact, but that didn’t seem like a lecture. That is how the project “Still Life” came to be born.

To illuminate the cruelty of his disease, ALS patient Hiro Fujita decided to use his condition (complete immobility of the body except for eye movement) to his advantage by serving as the model for a still life painting. In a country where patients are prone to withdraw from society and hide their disabledness, Hiro’s decision to intentionally put himself on display for public scrutiny was an attempt to provoke people into contemplating the disease and learning more about it. Hiro called out to people on social media, asking them to paint him as a human subject for a still life painting. Artists of all levels gathered to create paintings and drawings of Hiro, and the finished works covered the walls of the gallery. The collected artworks will be used by END ALS as creative assets to further promote awareness for ALS.

Hiro called out to people on social media, asking them to paint him as a human subject for a still life painting. Artists of all levels gathered to create paintings and drawings of Hiro, and the finished works covered the walls of the gallery. The collected artworks will be used by END ALS as creative assets to further promote awareness for ALS. They have already been exhibited at a gallery, displayed at a subway station, and shown digitally on an outdoor vision at Tokyo’s Harajuku district.