IN CONVERSATION
The Power of Art in the Age of AI —
Embodied Intelligence, the Art of Inquiry, and the Living Organization
IN CONVERSATION
The Power of Art in the Age of AI —
Embodied Intelligence, the Art of Inquiry, and the Living Organization
Takashi Nawa (Professor, Graduate School of Business Administration, Kyoto University of Advanced Science) x Kunihiko Yazawa (Artist, Co-Founder of White Ship, Inc.)
In a business world transformed by AI—where the pressure for speed and right answers keeps intensifying—why are some turning to art?
Japanese management thinker, Takashi Nawa, known for his work on purpose-driven and ethical management, sits down with Kunihiko Yazawa, co-founder of White Ship and creator of EGAKU — an art-based approach to developing the human capacities organizations need most. Together, they explore why embodied intelligence (身体知, shintaichi) matters more than ever in the age of AI — and how the capacity to ask meaningful questions might be the key to building truly flourishing organizations.
Art as Dialogue — Beyond the Myth of the Solitary Artist
Nawa: One of the things I find most fascinating about your work, Yazawa-san, is the concept of "dialogue." We tend to think of artists as solitary figures — individuals who turn inward, wrestle with their own inner world, and pursue their unique form of expression. Yet your practice—and EGAKU—places dialogue at the center. How do you understand the role of dialogue in art?
Yazawa: For me, art and dialogue are inseparable. Art does not occur in a vacuum; it emerges from being deeply engaged with the world. Yes, when I sit alone in front of a canvas, it's just me in the room — but if you trace the creative gesture back to its roots, it was never truly self-contained.
Consider cave paintings — among the oldest forms of art we know. They were not simply personal expression, not merely acts of projecting an inner world onto a wall.
Within those paintings, I believe, there was the vital sharing of knowledge that bound a community together, and acts of prayer — a reaching toward invisible presences beyond the visible world. Art, in that sense, has never just been self-expression. From the very beginning, it has always been dialogue —with others, with the community, with what lies beyond.
Nawa: That's a profound point. What you're describing is striking: the social and relational dimension is already embedded in expression, even before anything is created. The artist doesn't first create in isolation and then enter into relationship with the world. The relationship comes first. The making comes out of it.
That resonates deeply with what I've been developing in my own work on what I call New Japanese-Style Management (シン日本流経営). At its heart is the concept of ma (間) — the relational, generative space between self and other, individual and society. I think this kind of non-dualist worldview is very important. Rather than treating the self and the world as separate, value emerges from their intermingling.
In the business world too, I believe that relationships grounded in this kind of deep relationality — and the empathy that naturally flows from it — represent an inherent and distinctive strength of Japanese organizations.
Yazawa: Yes, that resonates with me deeply.
I often describe dialogue as breathing. If expression is the act of exhaling, then dialogue and observation are the act of inhaling — drawing in the stimulation of others, the subtle shifts in the world around you, digesting them, and breathing them back out. The moment that cycle stops, expression loses its vitality. It begins to wither.
Beyond the Teachable — Embodied Knowing and Navigating the Questions Together
Nawa: Experiencing EGAKU first-hand, it became clear to me that it is not about learning 'how to draw' in the conventional sense. In business, we tend to favor what is 'teachable'—skills that can be transferred efficiently. How do you define the act of 'teaching' in the context of art?
Yazawa: I don’t think art is something that can be simply 'taught' by one person to another - it isn't a one-way transfer of knowledge. And I certainly don't think of myself as a teacher. I see my role as that of a co-explorer — someone who steps into the space of questions without answers alongside the participants.
In art, what matters isn't the acquisition of technique so much as the cultivation of embodied knowing (身体的な気づき) that comes from direct experience: the resistance you feel when the brush presses against the paper, the unexpected mixing of colours, the moments of discomfort and friction in the process of making. These are not things that can be explained in words and understood intellectually. They are experienced directly.
I never tell participants how to draw. I simply create the conditions and process — through EGAKU — that allow each person to enter into dialogue with their own inner world and with the materials in front of them.
Nawa: This concept of 'embodied knowing' — I understand it now in a way I couldn't before, having experienced EGAKU ahead of this conversation.
When I participated in the EGAKU session, the theme I was presented with was 'Origin.' At first, I approached it conceptually — thinking about abstract ideas such as 'reincarnation' and 'potential.'
But the moment I actually picked up the pastels and began to move them instinctively, something curious happened. The deep blues of the ocean I had longed for since childhood, and the sunrise at Imaihama — where I travel every year to recharge — came flooding out.
Then as I continued to draw, something unexpected emerged on the canvas: a landmass.
In that moment, the word 'possibility' — which until then had only been an abstract concept in my head — descended on me as something tangible, visceral. That feeling — the landmass appearing unbidden, the catharsis of memory and image colliding in a way I hadn’t planned or predicted — I believe that was the first genuine stirring of shintaichi (身体知), embodied intelligence.
At the core of the New Japanese-Style Management model I advocate is something very similar – not logic, but something more embodied and innate. For too long, management has been skewed toward a Western-influenced logic — one focussed on finding the 'correct solution' as efficiently as possible. What these times demand is the courage to take what rises up from within us — our kokorozashi (志), our sense of purpose and calling — as our compass, and row out into a sea where no fixed answer exists.
Yazawa: That is precisely the moment when a 'dialogue with the body' begins—a state that transcends mere mental calculation.
Nawa: Yes. The imagery of death and rebirth — something I associate with Yukio Mishima's The Sea of Fertility — rose up in me, not through reasoning, but through the act of drawing. I have never reflected on my own origin so deeply, or so vividly. This wasn't a case of being 'taught'; it was an unearthing of something already held deep within. This, I believe, speaks to the very essence of coaching in modern leadership: not providing answers, but holding space for inquiry.
Professor Nawa in the EGAKU session, exploring the theme of "Origin" — deepening his self-reflection through the act of making.
Redefining Empathy - The Creative Power of ‘Divergence’
Nawa: This is where empathy becomes critical. In conversations about purpose-driven management and wellbeing, empathy is frequently cited as essential. Yet in art, empathy seems to operate at a different level — something more dynamic than simply feeling what another person feels.
Yazawa: Absolutely. Some people want their intentions understood perfectly — a complete, lossless transfer of meaning. But I believe the richness of expression lies precisely in the gap.
One person looks at a single patch of blue I've painted and sees deep sorrow. Another sees hope. That diversity of interpretation is the richness of art. Rather than imposing a correct reading, art works as a medium for revealing our different ways of seeing. When we acknowledge those differences — when we let them surface — a new kind of dialogue can begin. That, to me, is what real empathy looks like.
Nawa: That strikes me as a sharp insight for organizations too. If we pursue only perfect consensus, organizations become homogenous — and innovation runs dry. But when individuals with different backgrounds bring their own interpretations to a shared vision, and find ways to turn that divergence into energy, something genuinely generative becomes possible. Perhaps that is the deeper lesson art offers management.
Embodied Intelligence and the Value of Lived Experience in the Age of AI
Nawa: The defining challenge in business today is how to coexist with AI (artificial intelligence). AI can derive optimal solutions from vast datasets and even facilitate 'new combinations'—innovation—that at times surpasses human capabilities.
However, looking back on my recent experience in EGAKU: if I were to prompt an AI to 'draw my origins,' it would instantly generate a plausible image of a sea or a sunrise. What it could never replicate, however, is the lived experience itself — the grit of the pastel scraping against the paper, the shock of an unplanned landmass suddenly emerging on the canvas, the catharsis of imagery connecting to memory in ways I had neither planned nor predicted.
Yazawa: Precisely. And it is because we are in an era of accelerating digitalisation that I believe the value of non-verbal, hands-on experience is rising. AI can provide logical answers—but it cannot replicate that sharp, visceral edge of working with your hands, through trial and error, until intuition suddenly strikes: not that—this.
To immerse oneself purely by instinct, giving form to one's inner world in a space where no correct answer exists — it is the accumulation of this kind of embodied process that builds an unshakable backbone within a person. In an age saturated with copies and simulations, I am convinced that this irreplaceable, embodied human experience will become the true driving force for individuals and organizations alike.
Nawa: That is an important point — and its significance will only grow in the AI era. Beyond the pursuit of efficiency, what New Japanese-Style Management ultimately seeks is the restoration of gei (藝, art) — a return to what is irreducibly human.
In this day and age, if all we want is efficient output, we should leave that to AI. However, the essential human value lies in the processes that precede that output—the seemingly 'inefficient' acts of observation and trial and error. By delegating the automatable to AI, we free ourselves to concentrate on what cannot be replaced: asking the questions that matter and human creative expression. This, I believe, is how Japanese-style management will evolve.
Closing reflections
Nawa: What stayed with me most from this conversation — and from the experience of EGAKU that preceded it — is the critical importance of process in management. Most organizations are consumed by the pursuit of fixed, predetermined outcomes delivered with maximum efficiency. But just as I stumbled upon that unexpected landmass on the canvas, it is the unplanned discoveries that emerge from embodied process that allow an organization to transcend existing logic and evolve into something genuinely creative and resilient.
This is the vision at the heart of New Japanese-Style Management: creating a space for organic, unscripted discovery—the very yohaku (余白), space that transforms a functional unit into a living entity with genuine vitality.
Yazawa: The key question is precisely how to cultivate that space within an organiation — that space for inquiry, experimentation, and open exploration. When an artist faces a canvas, there is no finished image waiting to be reproduced. There is only an unending dialogue with the materials and with oneself.
I believe the same is true for anyone, in any field. When we stay connected to our inner world, approach our work with genuine curiosity, and remain open to divergence and failure rather than fearing them, something begins to accumulate — a deepening of embodied intelligence, a capacity to learn from experience. Just as you, Professor Nawa, touched your own 'origin' simply by moving your hands, I believe this kind of transformation is available to everyone — not as a sudden revelation, but as a continuous unfolding.
Through the practice of art, I hope to go on exploring what it means to lead and to live well — together with as many people as possible.
Translated and edited from the original Japanese by Ryoko Maria Nakamura
Editors' Note
This dialogue reveals a striking convergence between Takashi Nawa’s pursuit of purpose (kokorozashi) as a counterpoint to pure logic, and Kunihiko Yazawa’s exploration of creative expression. Despite working in different domains, both are navigating the same terrain.
A symbolic moment captures this: the “unexpected landmass” that emerged on Nawa’s canvas during an EGAKU session—an insight that transcended his initial logic. In an era defined by AI-driven efficiency and the pursuit of optimal answers, this serendipitous discovery points to a different kind of intelligence—one grounded not in analysis, but in direct engagement and experience.
In Japanese, this is understood as 身体知 (shintaichi)—or embodied intelligence: a form of knowing cultivated through practice, grounded in lived experience, and expressed through action and relational attunement rather than abstract reasoning. Rather than treating the body as a tool of the mind, this perspective recognizes it as a locus of intelligence, where the body itself becomes the anchor of judgment, empathy, and creativity—integrating cognition, perception, and action.
Both Nawa’s management philosophy and Yazawa’s practice point to the importance of creating psychologically safe spaces where experimentation, divergence, and non-linear discovery can unfold. Over time, this gives rise to a form of collective human intelligence, enabling organizations to become more adaptive, creative, and alive. Ultimately, an organization’s creative resilience in an uncertain world seems to lie in this ongoing process: questioning existing frameworks, refining our capacity to ask better questions, and learning through iterative experimentation.
Editors: Kimi Hasebe, Ryoko Maria Nakamura
Editors' Note
This dialogue reveals a striking convergence between Takashi Nawa’s pursuit of purpose (kokorozashi) as a counterpoint to pure logic, and Kunihiko Yazawa’s exploration of creative expression. Despite working in different domains, both are navigating the same terrain.
A symbolic moment captures this: the “unexpected landmass” that emerged on Nawa’s canvas during an EGAKU session—an insight that transcended his initial logic. In an era defined by AI-driven efficiency and the pursuit of optimal answers, this serendipitous discovery points to a different kind of intelligence—one grounded not in analysis, but in direct engagement and experience.
In Japanese, this is understood as 身体知 (shintaichi)—or embodied intelligence: a form of knowing cultivated through practice, grounded in lived experience, and expressed through action and relational attunement rather than abstract reasoning. Rather than treating the body as a tool of the mind, this perspective recognizes it as a locus of intelligence, where the body itself becomes the anchor of judgment, empathy, and creativity—integrating cognition, perception, and action.
Both Nawa’s management philosophy and Yazawa’s practice point to the importance of creating psychologically safe spaces where experimentation, divergence, and non-linear discovery can unfold. Over time, this gives rise to a form of collective human intelligence, enabling organizations to become more adaptive, creative, and alive. Ultimately, an organization’s creative resilience in an uncertain world seems to lie in this ongoing process: questioning existing frameworks, refining our capacity to ask better questions, and learning through iterative experimentation.
Editors: Kimi Hasebe, Ryoko Maria Nakamura
