Relight Committee is a citizens' university launched in 2016 to cultivate "social sculptors." I was involved in its conceptualization and design, defining social sculptors as "people who use art's creativity and imagination to continuously create new value in their own lives and work, and who take action." At the time, Japan's prevailing volunteer models centered on following instructions. I believed we needed a learning space that fostered individuals who think and act autonomously, building self-directed relationships with one another.

The program emerged from the Relight Project, which began after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Through "Relight Days"—relighting Tatsuo Miyajima's media artwork "Counter Void" each year from March 11 to 13, after it was turned off due to post-disaster energy conservation—we embodied an approach of confronting life and death to create new value. From this practice, we envisioned a citizens' university as a space where individual transformation could drive social change.

Relight Committee reinterpreted Joseph Beuys' concept of "social sculpture" for the contemporary context, fostering participants' capacity to pioneer their own fields through dialogue sessions and hands-on projects that participants themselves conceived and implemented.