People often ask where my ideas come from. There is no single answer. They tend to surface quietly, shaped by places I’ve seen and cultures I’ve crossed.
“Seal or Bear?” grew out of that kind of moment. An animal suspended in the vastness of a frozen world—emerging from an ice hole, yet refusing to settle into a single identity. Is it a polar bear? A seal? Or something that holds both readings at once?
The idea came to me while traveling through northern Canada, surrounded by the stillness of Arctic landscapes and the deep presence of Inuit traditions. That silence has a way of sharpening perception—of making ambiguity feel natural rather than puzzling.
First created in the 1990s, the illusion went on to become a reference point in visual perception studies and later found its way into textbooks.
More recently, the “Seal or Bear?” illusion will be featured by the NHK Educational Corporation as part of a 2026–2027 educational series on psychology and visual perception.