Nobuaki Date, Ukulele-sation: a Building Conservation Project

Ukulele-sation: a Building Conservation Project started in April, 2000 by Nobuaki Date in order to conserve a personal memories related to the architecture which are going to be abandoned. In the project, the materials imbued with the life of the house are extracted and remade into a ukulele by the artist. Responding to the social transcendences in an individual level, labour of love offered by the artist transforms ukulele, a musical instrument into a container of memories. The ukulele is always returned to the owner of the house. Since the launch of the project, 62 ukuleles in total have been created.

A Ukulele is very compact and only has about 5 notes, which once you memorize, allow you to easily play any songs. It is just a cute lovable instrument which allows you to remember a lot. When his grand-father's 100-year-old house was torn down, he took about 500 pictures of textures throughout the house, as a souvenir. At that time, Date was also making musical products, that's how he came up with the concept. A musical instrument is as much a container of memories as a house, and ukuleles made out of house bits make the best sounds