The "Ellie Omiya Exhibition," a retrospective of the 14 years of work of commercial director/planner, film director, screenwriter, author, stage director, and recent music program host, is running at the Ginza Graphic Gallery (ggg) in Ginza until August 28th. The exhibition features photographs of a wide range of work from her 14 years, including advertising projects from her time at Dentsu, commercials, music videos, and TV dramas. A new installation piece is also on display in the basement. Now, marking a milestone year for her seven years as a company employee and seven years as an independent artist, we spoke to Ellie Omiya about her past, present, and future plans for this comprehensive exhibition. --How do you feel looking back on your work at this exhibition? Strangely enough, there isn't a single piece that makes you think, "This piece is good, isn't it?" or "This is the best, isn't it?" There's a sense of embarrassment about your old work.

--What part of this exhibition would you like visitors to see?

I've done a lot of different things up until now, so I'm often asked, "Which one is what you want to do? Which one is the real Ellie?" But it's all the same thing. I hope that when people see all of them this time, they'll realize, "Oh, this person is doing the same thing." But since each piece was created at the request of a client, it's just a single example. I think it would be fun if people looked at the pieces and wondered, "What would I create if I were doing it?"

--How do you view advertising, the origin of your work?

Well, advertising is a job that exists because of clients, so it's not like, "I'm doing this because I want to do it," but rather, you create it by asking, "What are the expectations of the client?" or "What needs do they have, and how should I respond to them?" Advertising is not a work of art.

For example, when I did the advertisement for MINTIA... At the time, people still didn't know about Mintia, so I felt bad about having to explain it as "kind of like Frisk." I thought about how to raise awareness, but I didn't have a big budget, so I featured a Mintia girl who looked like a badminton girl and had her sampled around town. The commercials were set in Lake Oze and the mountains, and featured an elderly man. After doing this, our sales rose to number one. Advertising is meaningless if it doesn't just stand out and generate buzz, but also sells the product, so I was happy about that.

—You've held solo exhibitions before, and the themes you choose are very Omiya-like.

I held solo exhibitions in 2012 called "Conveying Your Feelings" and in 2013 called "Being Alive." My interests were themes like "What is happiness?" and "What are we living for?" I feel like I incorporate these themes into my commercials, music videos, and plays.

One day, I asked a friend who works in counseling, "What should I do when I'm feeling mentally unstable?" and he told me, "You need to take a good, hard look at your heart." So first, I imagined a box for my heart. Then, I felt a tingling sensation inside the box, and I realized I was jealous. My emotions were telling me, "I'm jealous! I'm here! Don't ignore me!" So once I thought, "Oh, I'm jealous. Oh, I see. Jealousy is good, it's so human. Jealousy, yay!" I calmed down.

That was the trigger for me to give concrete form to my "feelings," including the box for my heart, in the "Exhibition on Communicating Thoughts." Then, one day, while walking through a forest in America, I found myself asking myself, "This is what it means to be alive." So I thought it might be good for everyone to try asking themselves these questions, and so I created an installation in which you follow words as you walk through the forest, which became the "Exhibition on Being Alive."

These are the only things I can communicate, and I can't think of anything else. The works I create for work, as well as the music video for my favorite band, Hanaregumi, are created with the hope that people will think things like, "This kind of lifestyle would be nice," or "Maybe I should slow down my life a bit."

2/2 will be posted tonight.