Most of the vertical composition is given over to black. A hand reaches in from above, holding a cord that strings together several small fish. Dried and bundled together as food, they are nonetheless trying to escape being eaten—a flight at once absurd and comic.

The black of mezzotint. For HAGINAKA Mayu, this black was chosen at the end of six years of inquiry. The gauge of the berceau, the wear of its blade, the number and direction of the graining: varying each, the artist prints a single motif dozens of times over, drawing closer to the black being sought. The black on the plate pulls the eye inward while seeming to hold light within it. It is because the black sinks so deeply that the burnished white shines.

The white of the spotlight surfacing below suggests the opening of a story not yet begun. The fish freed from the cord rises and looks back at the others. They too have legs, each of them. The texture of the scales, the direction of the eyes, the twist of the body differ from one to the next. Each individual, lumped together as anonymous food, has been given a face of its own.