On Belonging, Art, and the Hidden Power of Home | Part 1

Five-Year Chapters

From the outside, Hazuki’s journey reads like a map of constant motion:
Mexico → Hiroshima → Zurich → Lausanne → New York → back to Hiroshima.

Looking back, life seemed to move in five-year chapters – each place giving her just enough time to settle before the next door opened.
But ask her where home is, and the answer isn’t a place – it’s a feeling.

Born to Japanese parents who moved abroad for work and study, Hazuki spent her early years in León, Mexico, surrounded by a mix of languages and cultures. “At that age, everything just felt natural,” she says. “Spanish, English, Japanese at home – it all just blended.” But by the time she returned to Hiroshima at age six, her multilingual start began to narrow: “That’s when I forgot Spanish. I started becoming more Japanese.”

Then came Switzerland – a shift not just in language, but in everything. At 11, Hazuki landed in Zurich with no English skills and was thrown into an international school. “It was the hardest time,” she admits. “I didn’t understand anything. I’d go to school on Monday and end up being sick by Wednesday. The stress was real.”

But amid the disorientation, Hazuki found grounding in one thing: art. And by the time she moved to Lausanne at 14, that quiet passion began to grow roots.

“I always loved drawing, but it wasn’t until Lausanne that I started imagining it as a career.”