In the last decade, local art festivals have become very popular in Japan. Often held in open spaces, the real appeal of such festival lies in the gathering and interaction of people. For this reason, in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, some were cancelled or postponed; in 2021, some were finally held after infection control measures were put in place.

In this piece of writing, the author, who covers art festivals quite frequently, presents a chronological list of the 11 art festivals that left a particularly strong impression in FY2021, from August 2021 to March 2022, with overviews of events and notes on a few works. Overall, in addition to their regional characteristics, many of the works bear social relevance to the world facing the COVID-19 pandemic and the issues arising from it. In addition, the audiences seemed more sensitive to the artworks, which reminded us of the importance of such art experiences in times of crisis. In the final part of this article, I will pick up major art festivals in 2022.

Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22 (first term)

A comprehensive arts festival of “art,” “music,” and “food” that began in 2017 in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the areas most severely affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and is now in its third edition. This time, 10 years after the earthquake, the festival is divided into first and second term in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the first semester running from August 11 to September 26, 2021. In addition to the downtown Ishinomaki area and the Oshika Peninsula, artworks were exhibited for the first time in the vicinity of Onagawa Station in the neighboring town.

The theme set by Takeshi Kobayashi, chairman of the executive committee, was “altruism and fluidity.” With Kenji Kubota as a curator, the festival aimed to create a space in which people could share their imagination for others and the world to come. Twenty-three artists, including MES, HouxoQue, Makoto Aida, Yoko Ono, Tsubasa Kato, Lieko Shiga + Yusuke Kurihara + Takahiro Sato + Sotaro Kikuchi, developed works reflecting regional characteristics and the movement of the age. Since I was rocked by the first edition of the festival in 2017, I myself have been involved in this festival, but even without my preconception, this was the best art festival of 2021.

MES refers to the process of “reconstruction” that Ishinomaki has gone through and of the development of Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, which were billed as the “Olympic Games of Recovery.” In the public bathhouses that have been a source of comfort for people since the earthquake, scaffolding was put up over the partition walls, and various kind of sighs echoed.

HouxoQue’s work was installed at the former Senninburo, a popular community space constructed after the earthquake. The water, which is said to be non-polluting, flowed down from the glowing monitor, reflected the viewer’s image, slipped through the debris of the forgotten abandoned building, and circulated like hydrogic cycle of the earth.

Rieko Shiga, who has been interacting with hunter Nozomu Onodera since 2019, developed an installation that could be considered land art with Yusuke Kurihara, Takahiro Sato, and Sotaro Kikuchi. They dug trenches to aerate the marshy land and used the excavated soil for fields. The work also reminded me of the presence of the Onagawa nuclear power plant.

NorthernAlps Art Festival 2020-2021

The second edition of Northern Alps Art Festival was held in in Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture, respectively setting the period for visual art from October 2 to November 21, 2021. The first edition of the festival was held in 2017, and the second, scheduled for 2020, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the concept of “Water, Tree, Earth, Sky: The land as atmosphere, transparency, and mass” presented by General director Fram Kitagawa, 36 artists participated in it.

In this work by Nagano-based artist Atsuko Mochida, two former teacher’s residences are cut off and overlapped each other. This land is located on the western edge of the Fossa Magna, which divides the Japanese archipelago into east and west. Artist moved and transformed these supposedly immovable houses built on the land that had been formed through repeated crustal movements.

Saudi Arabian artist Manal AlDowayan represents the path of light for deity on the stage of Sunuma Shinmeisha Shrine, where Amaterasu is enshrined. The overwhelming amount of shimenawa (sacred ropes) installed on the stage, which were made to look like trees surrounding the shrine, is reminiscent of the shimenawa spoken of in the myth of Ama-no-Iwato, and evokes resistance against darkness.

Okunoto International Art Festival 2020+

Following the first edition in 2017, the second edition, originally scheduled for the fall of 2020, was postponed to the fall of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 53 artists expressed the history and characteristics of the region and unearthed the potential of the land of “saihate”. The executive director was Fram Kitagawa, and of the 53 artists, 47 presented new works.

Kayoko Nakashima’s “Akarui Ie” (Bright House), which was created through countless holes in a vacant house that used to be an office for a diatomaceous earth factory, lets in sunlight during the day and leaks light from the lamps at night. In a place on the edge of the sea that has gone through growths and decays, the work makes us think about hope, abundance, and human desire, which are symbolized by light.

The Suzu Theater Museum, housed in a renovated gymnasium of a former elementary school, is a theater-style folk museum that collects and exhibits housewares from local homes, and presents a performance with music and video every once in a while. Artists such as Yoshiki Nanjo, Saori Miyake, and Ayako Kuno have breathed new life into housewares in their respective works.

Rokko Meets Art 2021

Rokko overlooks the port of Kobe, which was opened to foreign trade after the Meiji Restoration, and has abundant nature. It was developed as a recreational mountain by foreign residents and was a place where new and old cultures met. As usual, Rokko was the stage for the 12th edition of this annual autumn event, which was held from September 11 to November 23, 2021, with a total of 34 works installed at 12 venues in the Rokko area and a satellite venue in the Arima Onsen area. The director/curator was Kiyotaka Takamizawa (Senior Director, Rokkosan Tourism).

At the Church of the Wind, designed by Tadao Ando, Tabaimo’s animation depicting the church as a physical body was projected on the ceiling. On the concrete ceiling, images like brains, plants, and clouds appear. This animation, exactly like the ceiling paintings in the church, produced the effect of spatial expansion.

In the former Parnassus Resting Hut, which was built 80 years ago as a golf course clubhouse, consisting of Yusuke Asai, Natsuki Takayama, Erina Matsui, and Goro Murayama, exhibited paintings and drawings worked on by them under the theme of the former Maya Kanko Hotel on Maya Mountain, also known as the “queen of abandoned buildings”. Through the paintings smeared with water dropped from leaking roof and drawings on found photographs I revolved the growth and decays of the tourist resort.

ALTERNATIVE KYOTO: imagination as a Form of “Capital”

The festival was held from September 24 to November 7, 2021 in Kyotango, Miyazu/Amanohashidate, Yosano, Fukuchiyama, Nantan, and Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture. The director is Shinya Yamaki, Culture and Arts Division, Culture and Sports Department, Kyoto Prefectural Government. The theme of the event was “The Possibility of Imaginative Art as New Form of Capital to Change the Coming Society.”

The 25 participating artists included SIDE CORE, Kenta Ishige, BIEN, Kenji Yanobe, Ryoji Ikeda, ANOTHER FARM, suplex Yamanaka, Yu Araki, Ryuichi Ishikawa, and Michihiro Shimabuku. Individual artists treated the history, climate, cultural assets, scenic spots, and nature of each area as their subject matter. Some combined local culture with cutting-edge technology to create a piece of digital art that can alter the meaning of a certain space, and others exhibited works based on their practice during artists-in-residence program.

SIDE CORE, which has been in residence program since 2018 in Kyotango, exhibited “cyclops at cape 2021” at a former textile factory. This work is the final piece in a series focusing on the lighthouse, which is now dwindling in numbers throughout Japan. Photographs of andesite rocks seen along the coastline of the Tango Peninsula were pasted on benchs placed at the venue, with drifted objects placed on it.

In Fukuchiyama, Yamanaka suplex held the exhibition “Light of My World” using the New Testament phrase “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world” as a starting point.

Curated by Takuya Tsutsumi and others, young artists such as Asako Fujikura and Takuro Goto displayed  mainly paintings and other kinds of works that face audiences squarely at a former pachinko parlor.

The theme of Yawata area, which is located adjacent to the south of Kyoto City and has some auto scrappers and waste recyclers, is based on the words “hosho” (releasing captured fish, birds, and other living creatures for the purpose of accumulating virtues) and “oukan” (to come and go). Michihiro Shimabuku created a stone garden made of rubble at Ishinomizu Hachiman Shrine.

An art fair, “Art Collaboration Kyoto,” was held at the Kyoto International Conference Center from November 5 to 7, the end of the period of this festival. Twenty-two Japanese galleries hosted the fair, and galleries based overseas were invited as guests to share booths and exhibit their works. For example, Tokyo-based gallery ANOMALY and Los Angeles-based Blum & Poe co-exhibited works by Chim↑Pom, Ishu Han, and others that raise social issues, while TARO NASU from Tokyo and Berlin-based Esther Schipper exhibit conceptual works by Ryan Gander, Simon Fujiwara, and others.

OKUYAMATO MIND TRAIL: Museum in your mind

The event was held from October 9 to November 28, 2021, in Yoshino Town, Tenkawa Village, and Soni Village, Nara Prefecture. The first edition was organized during the pandemic in 2020, this second edition again had a theme for each of the three areas: forest (Yoshino), water (Tenkawa), and earth (Soni). Visitors walked around each area for 3 to 5 hours to view works by a total of 26 artists.

The producer is Seiichi Saito (President of Abstract Engine Co., Ltd.). The Yoshino area was curated by Yoshinari Nishio (artist/associate professor at Nara Prefectural University), the Tenkawa area by Hiroko Kikuchi (artist), and the Soni area by Kiyoshi Nishioka (photographer/artist), with Kazumasa Sashide (chief editor of the magazine “Sotokoto”) serving as cross-area curator for the event.

A man was taken by a giant eagle and left on a precipice because of his prideful behavior. A high priest took pity on him, transformed him into a frog to save him, and then returned him to human form by reciting sutras. He portrayed the legend warning against the arrogant vividly in his lightbox.

Tenkawa is considered the birthplace of Shugendo(way of trial and practice) , and there are still areas where women are forbidden. The video artist Senzo Ueno developed an installation using water as a screen in this place where the clear stream “Amanogawa” flows. When a viewer drops a drop of water into a bowl placed in the center of the room, the surface of the water reflects the landscape beautifully.

Streaming Heritage｜Between the Plateau and the Sea (Fall Term)

The event was held on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from November 12 to 28, 2021, in the Nagoya Castle area (Nagoya Noh Theater and Shikemichi), Nayabashi area, and Atsuta/Miyanowatashi area. The project was an attempt to shed light on the flow of the Horikawa River from Nagoya Castle to the Port of Nagoya, streaming the history and cultural heritage of Nagoya in real time. The directors were Fuminori Akiba, Eriko Esaka, Yosuke Kawamura, Kei Fushiki, and Wataru Yamada. Following the spring term, which was held from March 12 to 28, the fall term was also attended by six participants: Etsuko Ichihara, Chiharu Shinoda, softpad, Akiko Nakayama, the Formant brothers, and Kanta Horio.

Kanta Horio created a viewer-participation installation at the Niwa Family Residence, which was originally an inn from Edo period. As visitors walk along a long, narrow passageway by grabbing a hanging strap, they find a table rotating in a nearby room, and a plastic bottle rising and falling in the courtyard. The outside of the entrance retains the appearance of a fine inn, but the back side of the building looks like a Showa-era apartment building. By setting ingenious contrivances, the artist amplified the strangeness of a building that has been preserved through repeated renovations.

At the Ito Family Residence, Etsuko Ichihara exhibited a work that combines technology with the motif of invisible beings. In this work, she installed a certain program on the household robot “Pepper” to allow it to be possessed by a deceased person and to automatically extinguish it after 49 days. This time, she “possessed” the robot herself, becoming a “modern Kannon” to explore the nature of prayer in an age of pandemic.

Nakanojo Biennale 2021

The festival was held from October 15 to November 14, 2021, with its main venue in a vast satoyama area dotted with hot springs in Nakanojo Town, Gunma Prefecture. First starting in 2007, the theme of its 8th edition was “PARAPERCEPTION- From Beyond Perception”. It intended to provide an opportunity to communicate and reflect on the sensations of everyday life that have been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The general director was Tetsuo Yamashige, and 125 artists participated in the biennale to show the artworks and performances created through residency programs.

Inspired by a dammed lake located deep in the Rokugo area that supplies electricity to the city, Takashi Hokoi installed swaying sculptures like a balancing toy inside and outside the 200-year-old former Yumoto House, respectively. The outside objects were made to move with natural wind and the inside ones with electricity, but by connecting them with threads, the artist made us feel that natural energy and man-made energy are interrelated and that human beings are kept alive in the ambiguous space between the two.

After visiting the former Hirozakari Sake Brewery, which is no longer in business, and the words “absence,” “forgetting,” and “sleep” came to his mind, Soshi Nakamura created a video installation. The image of the Greek myth of Lethe, a symbol of oblivion, was superimposed on the act of drinking sake and fused with the local ninja traditions. In doing so, he traced the taste of sake which exists only in the memories of a very few people.

ICHIHARA ART x MIX 2020+.

The third edition of the this art festival, which began in 2014, was scheduled for spring 2020, but was postponed for about 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fram Kitagawa and Ryo Toyofuku served as general director and art director, respectively. Sixty-eight artists participated under the theme of “Peeking into the World from the Satoyama of Boso.”

Tatsu Nishino opened a hotel at Kamiasokubo Station, which is unmanned but still functions as an active station. The waiting room on the platform was made to look like a terrace, and guest rooms were installed in the back of the station building. The public restrooms have been converted into modern Western-style toilets and hot shower rooms. When the situation is changed, the scenery of rice fields in front of the station looks different.

At a mansion in the small village of Tsukisaki, where an influential man once lived, Ayse Erkmen displayed a large number of items from inside the house along the garden pathway. Paintings, stuffed animals, and a plaque with the “Five Articles of Oath”were displayed in the garden, where various stone statues originally stood, to evoke the character of the former owner of the house.

Tamae Hirokawa in BEPPU

The festival “in BEPPU,” an art festival in the form of a solo exhibition, invites one artist each year to Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, one of Japan’s leading hot spring resorts, to develop an art project that makes use of the local characteristics of the area. 6th edition of the festival invited fashion designer Tamae Hirokawa. A series of events were held from December 18, 2021 to February 13, 2022, at various locations in Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, and online. The general producer was Junya Yamade.

Hirokawa set the theme of “Matsuri (festival)” since she saw it as something needed in this era of drastic changes in daily life and unpredictable future. Particularly impressed by gushing steam and hot springs “Jigoku(hell)” in Beppu, she created a new festival mainly in Kannawa Onsen, the area with a lot of Jigokus, by holding three rituals that trace the water veins of the hot springs from the mountains though the town to the sea.

On December 18, the first day of the exhibition, she held “Jigokumatsuri Shinji Honou”. Starting from Honou-Honome Shrine, dancers Ema Yuasa, Daisuke Omiya, the locals of Beppu, and others paraded as “marebito” in costumes designed by Hirokawa. At the final stop, the square in front of Kannawa Mushiyu, they danced in a circle with audiences and performed an earth-stomping dance. The building of the Kannawa Mushi-yu was decorated with lanterns and short split curtain made of Hirokawa’s signature “Skin Series” to ward off evil spirits, creating a different atmosphere from the usual.

A video work was shown at the sentakuba-ato, which was once used as a community laundry. Costumes were also displayed in the park. Although many Japanese traditional festivals across Japan had to be canceled or postponed due to the pandemic, the festival in Beppu, where I could directly feel the energy of the earth, and the energy of the people who gather there, provided an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of festivals.

Sense Island  –Sarushima Dark Museum 2021–

The event was held in Sarushima, an uninhabited island in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, during night on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from January 22 to March 6, 2022 (and February 10). It was started in 2019 under the concept of sensing Sarushima and its nature in the dark through the art works as a lens. The second edition, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held under the theme of “sound,” with 13 groups exhibiting their works. Seiichi Saito served as a producer.

Sarushima is a place where there are caves that show how people lived in the Yayoi period, where fortress was constructed in the late Edo period and in the Meiji period to defend the capital, and where it was used as an air defense battery in the early Showa period, and the ruins of this fortress remain on the island. Today, it is popular as an island for leisure activities, but the tour took visitors to Sarushima at night, when access to the island is usually restricted, with their cell phones sealed off.

In the 100-meter long tunnel, Yuko Mohri presented a sound installation. Sspeakers placed at both ends of the tunnel emit disparate sounds, and as one moves forward, the indistinct sound becomes clear and at some point one hears “I canʼt hear you very well.” The words of the title are taken from a phrase repeated by Buddhist scholar D.T. Suzuki when he was on a TV program and tried to do international phone call, which was unsuccessful. D.T.Suzuki was a person who was at times pacifist and at other times approving of war, and whose attitude towards peace wavered. The artwork made me thought about that wavering on an island created for national defense.

At the site of a former circular turret, Miyu Hosoi has created a theater that brings out the viewer’s inner self. Bending down to enter an ammunition box with sound-absorbing panels, what my hearing was restricted and my field of vision was cut into squares. After a while, I was reminded of the solitary, stay-home life during the COVID-19 pandemic, and when I got out  from it, I was relieved to hear human voices and the sounds of trees.

Major Art Festivals in 2022

The Setouchi Triennale and the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, two of Japan’s major regional art festivals, have never been held in the same year, but due to the pandemic, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was postponed and both will be held in the same year. Aichi 2022, the predecessor of the relatively urban-type art festival Aichi Triennale, is also expected to be worth seeing in terms of both quality and quantity. Special events may be held at art-related facilities in the areas where the festival is held, so be sure to check the timing of events and plan your visit accordingly.

■Setouchi International Art Festival 2022
Dates: April 14 – May 18, August 5 – September 4, September 29 – November 6
Venues: Kagawa and Okayama Prefectures｜12 islands and 2 ports including Naoshima, Teshima, Megijima, Ogijima, Shodoshima
Official website: https://setouchi-artfest.jp
This year marks the 5th edition of one of Japan’s largest art festivals held under the slogan “Reinstatement of the Sea”. More than 100 artists are scheduled to participate, including Manal Ardoyan and Kinoshita Kabuki. The general director is Fram Kitagawa.

■Dogo Onsenart 2022
Dates: April 28 – February 26, 2023
Venue: Dogo Onsen area, Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture
Official website: https://dogoonsenart.com/
In addition to Shinro Ohtake and Mika Ninagawa, whose works were shown in 2021, a total of 30 artists, including Etsuko Ichihara and Kyota Takahashi, will participate in the third edition of the exhibition. The general director is Tomoharu Matsuda (Spiral / Wacoal Art Center).

■Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2022
Dates: April 29 – November 13
Venue：Niigata Prefecture｜Echigo-Tsumari area(Tokamachi city, Tsunami cho)
Official website: https://www.echigo-tsumari.jp
One of the largest art festivals in Japan, which was scheduled to be held in 2021 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 90 groups are scheduled to participate, including Fujiko Nakaya and [mé]. More than 300 works can be seen, including permanent works. General director is Fram Kitagawa.

■Aichi 2022
Dates: July 30 – October 10
Venue: Aichi Arts Center, Ichinomiya City, Tokoname City, Arimatsu District (Nagoya City)
Official website: https://aichitriennale.jp
Aichi 22 is the successor of the Aichi Triennale, an international art festival that will be held for the first time this year. Director of the Mori Art Museum, Mami Kataoka, will serve as Artistic Director. More than 77 artists, including Gabriel Orozco and Chiharu Shiota, are scheduled to participate.

■Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22 (second term)
Dates: August 20 – October 2
Venue：Ishinomaki area, Miyagi Prefecture
Official website: https://www.reborn-art-fes.jp
The curators for the second half of the festival, which follows the first half mentioned above, are Etsuko Watari and Koichi Watari of the Watari-um Museum of Contemporary Art, who have been involved with the festival since its inception. Twenty-one artists, including Tadashi Kawamata and Izumi Kato, are scheduled to participate.

■Rokko meets art 2022
Dates：August 27 – November 23
Venue：Kobe city Rokkosan
Official website: https://www.rokkosan.com/art2022/
From September 23, “Hikari no Mori” will be held on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays only, where visitors can enjoy nighttime-only artworks.

■Okayama Art Exchange 2022
Dates: September 30 – November 27
Venue: Former Uchisange Elementary School, Okayama Tenjinyama Cultural Plaza, Okayama Orient Museum of Art, Hayashibara Museum of Art, etc.
Rirkrit Tiravanija will serve the artistic director, and 24 groups, including Lee Bul and Ei Arakawa are scheduled to participate. The general producer is Yasuharu Ishikawa and the general director is Taro Nasu.

■Streaming Heritage（2022）
Dates: October 1, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from November 3 – 20 (tentative)
Venue:Nagoya City, Aichi prefecture

■BIWAKO Biennale 2022
Dates: October 8 – November 27
Venue: Shiga Prefecture｜Omi Hachiman Old Town, Hikone City, etc.
Official website: https://energyfield.org/biwakobiennale
The theme of the 10th edition of the biennale is “ORIGIN.” The venues include Okishima Island on Lake Biwa and Toriihon, a former post town on the Nakasendo Highway. More than 60 artists, including Ken + Julia Yonetani and Makoto Egashira, participated. The general director is Yoko Nakata.

■OKUYAMATO MIND TRAIL Museum in your mind
Dates: Fall 2022( tentative)
Venue: Yoshino Town, Tenkawa Village, Soni Village, Nara Prefecture

■Sense Island 2022
Dates: Fall 2022 (tentative)
Venue: Sarushima, Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture

The post From 2021 to 2022, the Year of the Arts Festival: Japan’s Regional Arts Festivals to Visit This Year appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Two magical encounters  

Beppu is known for having the world’s highest number of hot springs suitable for people to enter. Steam can be seen rising everywhere. People from diverse backgrounds garner there, mesmerized by what they see. Although there are many tourists, you could sometimes run into half-naked elders on their way home from a public bathhouse. It’s a curious town indeed. 

In 2009, Beppu started Mixed Bathing World, an art festival held once every three years. In 2016, they began hosting In Beppu, another art festival in which one artist/group of artists could have a solo exhibition. So far, Me, Tatzu Nishi, Anish Kapoor, and Kotaro Sekiguchi have shown their work at the festival. The fifth artist who got invited was Tetsuya Umeda.

Umeda is an artist who visualizes the invisible by interpreting and reconstructing a particular place’s structure, function, and context. He also involves people who are there and incidents that take place by chance. The audience gets thrown into a situation where they can’t discern what’s artificial and not. Their experience is akin to roaming in another dimension. 

For instance, at Zero-Sai (2014), held in Sanno, Nishinari ward in Osaka, Umeda carried out a field performance where the audience used a map and encountered mysterious phenomena at different destinations. Also, at Internship (Asia Culture Center, Korea, 2016/KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theater, 2018), he dynamically “played” the theater’s mechanism, such as pulling the lighting equipment up and down and having the orchestra players tune their instruments. For Kibou no Genri (2014), a group exhibition shown at Kunisaki Art Festival organized by the Beppu Project, who also host In Beppu, he created an installation that made the audience feel the presence of a person(s) in the vault of an old town hall. In other words, Umeda is an artist who makes unusual art. 

As a fan of Umeda and as someone who has ties with Beppu, I set foot, anticipating that Umeda and Beppu dramatically joining forces would be interesting. I got a PCR test just in case. 

Seeing an already-existing world in a new light

Covid had a considerable effect on “Zero-Tai.” One year prior, Umeda was picturing a large-scale exhibition, including his installation works. However, because the government made a state of emergency announcement during the pandemic, he had to reconsider his approach in March 2020. To replace his original idea, he thought of using a film, map, and radio, which points to the audio the audience hears on a device with a GPS function and so forth. 

To summarize, the 40-minute film depicts actor Mirai Moriyama wandering around various spots in Beppu, with Hikari Mitsushima appearing at every turn, explaining the land’s history and geography in bits and pieces. The audience could then go to the destinations shown in the film using a map and radio. The audio is of the actors’ lines, other lines they practiced in rehearsals, and the ones that got cut. This played a part in helping the audience get around Beppu. The crucial point was the scenery and experience that awaited them. One could start with either watching the film or using the map and radio. I watched the film first. 

Perhaps people are first drawn to Moriyama and Mitsushima. Umeda and Moriyama met each other in July 2020 for a live-streamed theater piece, Playtime, at Theater Cocoon. Starting with Umeda’s Internship, he put Theater Cocoon in motion after it awakened from its covid-induced sleep. The piece itself was based on Kunio Kishida’s play, Rennai Kyofubyou, featuring Moriyama and Haru Kuroki.  Moriyama, who saw Umeda’s performance at Superdeluxe in Roppongi (now closed) a few years before, was impressed with him: “He would pile what looked like junk on top of one another, and then would destroy that. He created an organic energy, and it was so beautiful.” Moriyama found out about Internship afterward and when He became involved in the reopening of Theater Cocoon, he suggested that he would like to work with Umeda. Umeda then became in charge of composing and directing Playtime. He asked Moriyama to join “Zero-Tai,” which was still developing at that point. Moriyama and Mitsushima are both talented actors who have co-starred numerous times.*1

The two make the film what it is (and shifts the notion of what makes a film). However, they aren’t the only ones in it. The cameramen, sound technician, the Beppu Shōsei High School brass band, who play the film’s score, and everyone involved in making the film appear in it too. In Internship, the staff—who are usually behind the scenes—and actors are treated equally as well. 

Umeda describes it as “a performance of making a movie.” *2 The film was shot with a small crew on a tight schedule: they went to scout locations in October, shot it in three days in November, and released it in December. He “wrote the script in one sitting, and shot it quickly,” and apparently, it was an eccentric, unusual set.

Once I settled into my seat inside the movie theater and got immersed in the enigmatic film, suddenly, the screen showed the audience. Umeda explains: “Many things have happened during different times, but our situation today is particularly unique. I felt like I’d be telling a lie if I were to ignore our situation.” What I saw in front of me was a bizarre scene symbolizing the present. 

Spots filled with mystery  

After I received my map and radio, I was ready to venture out. When the exhibition started, there were 20 location pins on the map, including Beppu’s town area and tourist sites. The radio could be used in Maruido, Nakahama Suji, Beppu Spa Beach, Ichinoide Kaikan, Tsurumien, and Tsukahara Onsen Kakono Izumi. Six places in total. During the exhibition period, Beppu Ropeway, Myoban Onsen, and the Buenos Aires sea (!) were added to the list of places where the audience could use the radio.

Maruido, the first stop on the map, is in the residential area of Hamawaki, the birthplace of the hot springs of Beppu. This well was made in 1847, and people still use this water every day. As I got closer, I heard a voice from the radio: “What’s beyond this hole?” It was Mitsushima’s voice, the same one from the beginning of the film. I gently lifted the lid and peeked inside. By the way, most of the hot springs in Hamawaki have dried up, and they get the hot spring water from elsewhere. Today, Hamawaki is somewhat known for being a former red-light district. One theory is that it became a red-light district because there were no more hot springs, and the other says that it was a red-light district first. It was dark inside the well, which hasn’t dried up since the Edo period, and so I couldn’t see well. But I gained the sensibility to try to look at something I couldn’t see. 

What I heard on this seemingly ordinary street, Nakahama Suji, were seagulls crying and the phrases, “With the ebb and flow of the waves, the Reichosen sways and sways” and “There are two islands; one will sink into the ocean, and the other will sink into memory.” I looked it up and found out that this area used to be a coastline. I thought about it and realized only these streets were zig-zagged. In 1893, a public bathhouse called Reichosen was built close to the Beppu harbor. Rumor has it, the temperature of the hot water altered according to the ebb and flow of the tides. Also, the Nakahama Jizo statues, which are on the way to Nakahama Suji, were made in the sixth century. Uryu island and Hisamitsu island, which used to be in the Beppu bay, sunk because of the Keicho Bungo Earthquake in 1596. It’s said that people prayed for the victims’ souls, and no more natural disasters there. When I thought about that part of history, I suddenly felt like the sand was being drawn out from between my toes. 

The next place I went to was Beppu Spa Beach, after being at a former beach. It’s from the scene of the film where young-looking women in kimonos make an appearance. On the radio, I heard the line, “Many people bathe when the tide is low; saltwater cures illness well” and gunshots. According to Umeda, the young women come from the postcards from the Showa era. The gunshots are related to the special procurement boom after the war. Until the Edo era, hot springs sprung from the beaches in the area. Back then, if you dug a hole in the sand, you could have a sand bath. However, it’s filled up and is an artificial beach now. Further, from 1945 to 1957, the occupied forces built bases in Beppu, and people began to have more business opportunities. Cultures geared toward the forces developed, too. The image of the smiling women in holes also connects to bomb shelters and graves. 

Ichinoide Kaikan is a catering service in conjunction with a hot springs facility where customers can enjoy the full view of the town. Once I got closer to the steamy cave behind the facility, I heard, “After playing a role, unacknowledged by anyone, it gets left behind and forgotten” and “Buenos Aires.” This place is the remains of a gold mine. Around Rakutenchi, an amusement park only 500 meters away, people dug out and sold gold from the mines starting from around 1903. But when the land began to produce hot springs, the mining came to a halt in 1916. Moreover, the whole hot springs area here is on an alluvial fan formed by the eruption of Mount Tsurumi. You could see andesites, a type of volcanic rock, here and there. The Japanese word for it, anzangan, derives from the English name, alluding to the volcanic rocks in the Andes mountains in South America. This fact makes me feel aware of how our terrains are connected to South America.

Next up was the Tsurumien. The place had overgrown weeds and an abandoned pool. Words that a tour guide might utter like “Ancient battlefield” and “Yoshihiro Muneyuki” were broadcasted, along with other phrases like “Entrance fee: adults, 40 sen. Soldier and children, 20 sen.” Yoshihiro Muneyuki was a bushō during the Sengoku period, who died in 1600 in the battle of Ishigakibaru, deemed the “Sekigahara of Kyushu.” The Tsurumi district, where Tsurumien is today, was the battlefield. In 1925, the big amusement park, Tsurumien, was established. Tsurumien Joyuu Kageki was influenced by Takarazuka Revue and played at the big theater there. They became so popular, they became known as “The Takarazuka of Kyushu.” After the war, it was seized by the occupying forces and was used as an American camp. After they returned it to Japan, the space was turned into a leisure center but closed its doors seven years later in 1976. War, pleasure, and the things human beings do all mix into one.  

The sixth spot is Tsukahara Onsen Kakono Izumi in Yufuincho, a 30-minute car drive from the town area of Beppu. Once I got past the hot springs, lively with tourists, and went up a hill, I saw steam gushing out from many rocky surfaces. I could hear phrases like, “Here, two faults are bumping into each other,” “The plate you and I stand on are different,” and “Goodbye; see you on the other side of the earth next time.” Around Shimabara, Nagasaki, west of Beppu, and bordering on Kyushu, the Philippine Sea Plate in the south had sunken under the Eurasia plate in the north. That’s what caused a rift to occur, which is why active thrust faults, volcanos, and hot springs are concentrated in the area. This place is a volcano at the midway point of Garandake, the summit of Beppu’s alluvial fan. Garandake is an active volcano situated right at the point where the Kannawa fault and Asamigawa fault meet. The hot water running underground is the hot springs source for Beppu Hatto (the main eight hot springs area). If these plates continue shifting, we might see one another on the other side of the earth.

Deeper immersion provoked by not being in control  

No artworks were displayed at each “venue.” You could only see the scenery, but by listening to profound audio messages, another world came to life. Also, the content and timing of the audio differed slightly from device to device. Because the circumstances of one’s surroundings were different depending on when one went there, each person’s experience was unique. Of course, the things people thought and the things people felt with their bodies differed too. 

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Walks series and recently, Akira Takayama’s group, Port B’s Heterotopia series, used audio to evoke images or history of the place. But one of the vital points of “Zero-Tai,” is the limited functionality of the audio device (called a radio for convenience), which Umeda himself was particular about. The device only has an on and off switch, volume adjuster, and lamp that blinks once it’s close to a specified location. The audience can’t play or tune it. 

At first, I felt tied down and worried. This is something I felt during Umeda’s ship tour performance, Five Ships (Night Cruise Edition) (2015) as well: we usually feel like we can control most things—especially things we want to see—on the palm of our hand. However, by being unable to control things, we have no choice but to focus on the situation right in front of our eyes. Our ability to seek something and feel something becomes stronger that way. 

Umeda had an informative experience with the radio. “As a child, we didn’t have a TV, so we listened to the radio. From around middle school, I would sneak out of the house at midnight and extend the antenna to pick up on radio waves from another prefecture to listen to the second part of All Night Nippon.” The tension born from activity and passivity battling one another is similar to this sensibility. 

He also says he had a paramount experience related to movie theaters as a child. “There was one movie theater on the island of Amakusa in Kumamoto prefecture, where I lived, and [my parents] would take me there on the weekends. Old movie theaters don’t have lights around your feet area, so it was pitch black before the film started. It was scary and exciting.” Umeda’s film was shown at the only movie theater in the once theater-filled Beppu, Beppu Bluebird Theater, established in 1949. The journey of “Zero-Tai” started from sitting in the velvet-covered seat.

What lies beyond the “zero” of a stagnant world  

Lastly, I would like to think about the title: “Zero-Tai.” You could tell that the title is ambiguous, as 0 reads as “zero” but could also indicate the letter “o.” He has used 0 for a couple of his artworks. Zero-Sai mentioned earlier, and Zero-Kai, an installation where Umeda reinterpreted the purpose of the cafeteria, lockers, and such in the basement floor of the former Omiya government office held at the Saitama International Art Festival 2020 last year, both have zero in the title. The running theme is how he revitalizes things that seem to have lost their usage by bringing a new order to them. Also, one can say that his work is “zero” because he doesn’t have easy-to-understand displays or artworks. 

Also, the shape of 0 resembles a hole or a cave. The locations this time included a well, a cave, and volcanic craters. To begin with, Beppu has a lot of holes in the form of hot springs. Umeda explains, “I wanted to create a hollow.” Various exhibitions, art festivals, theater pieces, and music events got canceled because of the pandemic. But he felt doubt about stopping everything at once because of one reason. “If we’re scattered without having a core, I think it’s possible to prevent ourselves from getting rounded up.” Come to think of it, Internship also exists in a world where there’s no center, like the main actor or role. 

Concerning “Tai” (滞), Umeda says, “滞 (tai) comes from 帯域 (taiiki), (which means bandwidth) because radios use radio waves. But because it was in Beppu, I wanted to use the water radical. 滞 (tai) is close to our situation right now too.” Many stagnant voices and sounds were interwoven in Beppu, and by immersing themselves in it, the audience witnessed a different world. People experienced intense immersion because it was stagnant during the pandemic. 

After “Zero-Tai,” he’s planning on publishing a new book as a clue to go around Beppu. I obsessively wrote a long piece about my conjecture about the meaning behind “Zero-Tai” and what I understood from doing so was how the scenery of Beppu and Umeda’s work have a mystique that can’t be summarized. 

*1 According to a talk between Tetsuya Umeda and Mirai Moriyama during a live-stream event on March 14th, 2021
*2 According to an interview with Tetsuya Umeda on December 12th, 2020 (the same applies below)

■Tetsuya Umeda in Beppu “Zero-Tai”:
The book is scheduled to be published in August

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Most of its characteristic permanent pieces will be relocated, no need to despair, although the people attached to the cozy atmosphere of the building itself aren’t few.  In this article, we will explore the surprisingly lesser-known history of the museum and its building, the last exhibition held in it and its future. 

The building was initially built by an entrepreneur at the request of his wife

The building of the Hara Museum in Shinagawa was built in 1938, 41 years before it opened as a museum in 1979, and the whole area around it was originally the piece of land where the Hara family’s mansion was for generations. It is said that in 1982, Rokurō Hara, an imperial loyalist at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and entrepreneur during the Meiji and Taishō eras, took over the land previously owned by Saigō Jūdō, Saigō Takamori’s young brother.

Rokurō was the president of the 100th National Bank (which later merged with Mitsubishi Bank) and Tobu Railway, also contributing to the establishment of Tokyo Electric Light (currently TEPCO) and the Imperial Hotel. Along with Shibusawa Eichi, Yasuda Zenjirō, Okura Kihachiro, and Furukawa Ichibei, Rokurō is known as one of the “five men of the Japanese business world,” as well as a notorious art collector. His collection includes works such as Sesson Shukei’s “Resshigyofūzu,” Kanō Eitoku’s “Kozu,” Maruyama Ōkyo’s “Yodogawa Ryōgan Zukan” and many more. 

Kunizō Hara became Rokurō’s son-in-law and succeeded the family. He was active as an entrepreneur from the Taishō era to the middle of the Shōwa era, acting as chairman of Tokyo Gas, Japan Airlines and president of Teito Rapid Transit Authority (currently Tokyo Metro). When Kunizō inherited the land, there was only a Japanese-style house on the plot, and at the request of his wife Taki (Rokurō’s eldest daughter), he built a Western-style private residence in 1938, which later became the Hara Museum’s building. 

The building and its different roles

Designed by Jin Watanabe, a leading architect at the time who worked on the Tokyo Imperial Museum (currently the Tokyo National Museum’s Main Building) and K. Hattori (currently Wako Ginza). The Hara residence was built as a modernist building adopting essential elements of Bauhaus and Art Deco. In 1941, the Pacific War started, and the family was forced to evacuate the residence, which was requisitioned by the GHQ, and used as a dormitory for US military officers after the war. As an aside, all the other buildings designed by Jin Watanabe have been requisitioned by the occupying forces: for example, the afore-mentioned K. Hattori became a shop exclusively for military officers, the Dai-ichi Seimei Hall in Hibiya became the GHQ headquarters, and Hotel New Grand In Yokohama became a military dormitory, where MacArthur also stayed. 

After the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, the Hara residence was also used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later becoming the Philippine Embassy, and the Ceylon Embassy (currently Sri Lanka). After that, the house stayed vacant for more than ten years and was almost demolished to build an apartment complex, but the demolition was canceled due to the concrete being too sturdy. When Toshio Hara, Kunizō’s grandson, thought of opening a museum of contemporary art in the 70s, he had no intention of using the abandoned building. Toshio later visited the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, which building was once a private residence repurposed to be a museum in 1856, and was deeply captivated by how comfortable it felt; inspired by his experience, he decided to convert the Hara residence into an art museum.

Thus, the Hara Museum opened its doors for the first time in December 1979. After that, under the supervision of architect Arata Isozaki, the cafe, office building and hall were added to the main one, but the exterior appearance was mostly untouched. In 2003, the dramatically-fated building was even recognized by DoCoMoMo, and since then, it has been critically acclaimed for its architecture. 

The charm of the Hara Museum beyond architecture and permanent installations

With its building being a former residence, the Hara Museum attracted many artists and held many exhibitions that made the best use of its main characteristic. This was especially notable in the permanent installation rooms: one example would be Jean-Pierre Raynaud’s “L’Espace Zero,” initially a greenhouse that was later covered in white tiles. The former men’s toilet also became Tatsuo Miyajima’s “Time Link,” while the toilet for visitors became Yasumasa Morimura’s “Rondo;” the darkroom turned into Yoshihiro Suda’s “The Water Unfit for Drinking—Camellia,” and the bathroom into Yoshitomo Nara’s “My Drawing Room.”

Of course, the Hara Museum’s magnificence is not limited to its building: in 1977, Toshio founded the Foundation Arc-en-Ciel, two years before the museum’s opening; by that time, he was able to purchase about 200 works, focusing on his art collection since then. The collection now amounts to more than a thousand pieces, including works from artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean Dubuffet, Atsushi Kawahara, Yayoi Kusama, On Kawara, Yayoi Kusama, Ushio Shinohara, Nam June Paik, Ai Weiwei, Nobuyoshi Araki, Jan Fabre, Izumi Katō, William Kentridge, and Kohei Nawa. 

In 1980, the year after the museum opened, “Hara Annual,” a special exhibition to introduce young artists started. In the 90s, some exhibitions planned by the museum, such as “Shiro Kuramata’s World Exhibition,” began to tour overseas, thus improving the museum’s recognition overseas as one of Japan’s leading entities in contemporary art.

The artists who held solo exhibitions in the Hara Museum include Sophie Calle, Miwa Yanagi, Camille Henrot, Tabaimo, Adriana Varejao, Pipilotti Rist, Tomoko Yoneda, Jim Lambie, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Michaël Borremans, Nicolas Buffe, Cy Twombly, and Kishin Shinoyama.

The biggest reason why the Hara Museum was closed is the aging of the building, which is 80 years old. It was repaired often, but the damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake was extensive. Furthermore, there is no elevator, the stairs’ handrails are low, so it isn’t following barrier-free and universal designs. On top of that, the frontage is too narrow, and the number of large-scale pieces that are difficult to deal with has increased over time. It is unrealistic to rebuild as an art museum too, due to the regulations of the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance, where the conditions for attracting customers are strictly set. Therefore, it was decided to close the museum 40 years after its opening.

For posterity: the last exhibition in Shinagawa

From September 19, 2020, to January 11, 2021, the final exhibition “Time Flows: Reflections by 5 Artists” was held at the Hara Museum. In addition to the photographs by Tomoki Imai, Tamotsu Kido, and Tokihiro Satō, the main pieces of the exhibition, Masaharu Satō’s animation and Lee Kit’s installation were also taken from the museum’s collection and displayed.

Taiwanese-born, Taipei-based artist Lee Kit’s installation was initially showcased for his 2018 solo exhibition “We used to be more sensitive.” at the Hara Museum and joined the collection. The canvas-looking cardboard reads “Selection of flowers of branches.”

Tamotsu Kido, who captures the “sudden senselessness” of things that deviate from their original roles within everyday life, displayed 46 photographies in various sizes, intending to analyze the mysteriousness in what we can see, what exists. Vividly and humorously, Tamotsu shoots a variety of imageries far from the mainstream of modern society, such as cows looking through holes in artificial objects, or decommissioned cars covered in blue sheets.

Still in his mid-40s, Masaharu Satō passed away in the spring of 2019; nonetheless, his piece “Tokyo Trace,” which was initially showcased for his solo exhibition “Hara Documents 10 – Masaharu Sato: Tokyo Trace,” was also displayed for the Hara Museum’s closing exhibition. Masaharu recorded footage of Tokyo heading for the Olympics from five years ago and traced a part of it, blurring the gap between fiction and reality through the use of live filming and animation at the same time. In the solarium at the back of the exhibition room, an automated piano was playing Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” symbolizing the tracing of sound.

Tomoki Imai displayed pictures from his series “Semicircle Law,” which he shot from several mountain peaks within 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, pointing the camera in its direction. For this exhibition, he included new shots taken from the Hara Museum, reminding us that the accident persists.

Tokihiro Sato exhibited his new series “Photo-Respiration,” in which he makes use of long exposures techniques to capture the light traces of mirror and penlights he creates while moving around in front of the camera.

Looking through these artists’ works of art shedding light on their time and space, they are etched in our memories together with the Hara Museum and its closing, with the hope it will connect to our futures.

Reopening at a plateau resort

As an annex to the Hara Museum in Tokyo, the Hara Museum ARC was opened in 1988, around Ikaho Onsen in Shibukawa City, Gunma Prefecture; adjacent to the Ikaho Green Farm, the black and sharp building designed by Arata Isozaki shines in the abundant nature. In addition to the three exhibition rooms filled with natural light, there is a special exhibition room known as the “Kankai Pavillion,” based on Shoin-zukuri, while the outdoors are filled with permanent installations by artists from Japan and abroad, including Andy Warhol and Olafur Eliasson; another incredibly cozy location.

This venue also has a collection storage room, and the exhibitions so far have been organized around the works in the museum’s collection. Currently, the location is closed due to renewal work and is scheduled to reopen this spring. Most permanent installations from the Hara Museum in Shinagawa will also be relocated to this venue (Yoshihiro Suda’s “The Water Unfit for Drinking—Camellia” will not be relocated due to duplicability issues, but the sculptures will be preserved). Located in a plateau resort within day-trip distance from the city center, this venue will engrave the new history of the Hara Museum.

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The post The Hara Museum Reluctantly Closes Its Doors; Its Unknown History and Future appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

For this article, we interviewed contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. He is internationally acclaimed for his delicate expression through photography, his use of large-sized cameras, his surreal Dioramas, his long-exposure pictures of movie screenings Theaters, and his series of pictures of the sea and its horizon in different parts of the world known as Seascapes. His repertoire doesn’t stop there: from collecting antique art to architectural designs, recently he has even acted as a director for bunraku and ballet, making him quite the elusive personality. 

In October 2017, he inaugurated the “Enoura Observatory” in Enoura, Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, which he defined as his “legacy.” The Observatory, which took ten years to conceive and ten more to construct, is a place for sharing Japanese culture, a place to return to the origins of art and humankind, and a pinnacle of his refined taste. In October 2020, he published Tales of Enoura(In Japanese, Enoura’s Mysterious Stories), which contains essays by Sugimoto about the area with photographs. We interviewed Sugimoto at an atelier in Tokyo, during his forced stay in Japan due to the corona pandemic.

――It said in your book that the Enoura Observatory originates from the scenery you saw in Enoura when you were about five or six years old, on the Shōnan train running on the old Tokaidō line; when the train came out of the tunnel, you saw the ocean and realized “you were there.”

Hiroshi Sugimoto: That is my first realistic visual memory. It’s always been inside my heart.

――That reminds me of your series Seascapes, which is also exhibited at the Enoura Observatory. I heard it originates from the question of whether it is possible for modern people to see the sceneries that people from ancient times were seeing; in your childhood, did you feel like you recognized your own existence beyond time and space?

Sugimoto: The perception of my childhood is not so clear, but somehow I feel that the memory of blood can be traced back to the memories before my own life: for example, memories of people in the Jōmon period who were looking at the sea, memories even before that, when apes became humans. Therefore, I think humans have always thought about why they have a consciousness and why they formed a society in this manner, or rather, they want to remember “what a human being is.” I think that’s one of the themes of life.

――What kind of child were you when you were about five or six?

Sugimoto: I used to shut myself in my room and make model railways. There was a maid at home, and my mother was at work; I was a child who often played alone, so I used to daydream a lot, and I thought I was a little different from ordinary people. I used to have visual hallucinations. I think it was around my second year of elementary school: my mother thought that Christian education would be good for me, so I attended a nearby Sunday school in church, and one day, I saw something like a ring of light on the pastor’s head. I thought it couldn’t be normal, but that it was some kind of sign at the same time. I remember it well. I had some other mystical experiences like that.

――Do those kinds of hallucinations lead to your works?

Sugimoto: That’s why I wanted to be an artist: I wanted to take a concrete picture of my inner illusions, to use it as “photo evidence.” I was trying to become an artist, so I went to New York, and while I was wondering what my means of expression could be, I realized there was photography. Nobody seemed to be doing it yet, and regardless of whether it sold or not, I thought I could create something to strike back at the world of contemporary art. So, I tried to do that, and it went unexpectedly well (laughs).

――You designed the Enoura Observatory based on what the world will be 5000 years from now. What do you think the world will be then?

Sugimoto: One of my visions is that humankind will be extinct, and the Observatory will be a historical ruin that no one will be able to see.

――So there will be no people.

Sugimoto: I think that’s probable. You can’t tell what will come of the future, so you have to use your imagination. After all, 2000 years ago, when Christ was born, no one could imagine what would happen 2000 years later. Actually, when the plague epidemic spread in the 14th century and lasted for hundreds of years, we all thought we were punished by God. We really thought that we might go extinct.

――This time, there may be symptomatic treatments so it probably won’t happen, but something new and out of our hands may happen.

Sugimoto: I think there is a limit to how many organisms can maintain their population in a certain environment. Even if the number of amoebas in a petri dish drastically increases, it won’t go over a certain number. Therefore, I think that there is some kind of great providence at work in the natural world, with the power to automatically stop the number of human beings from increasing any further. Environment-wise, we probably reached the limit before the Industrial Revolution.

――On a global scale, that may be the case.

Sugimoto: I’m still not sure why the humankind was born: why have we bizarrely developed such a consciousness in the animal kingdom, invented language, writing, and developed different means of communication? The fact that we invented currency is amazing too. Our faith in it has made this capitalist society so sophisticated that, in the last 100 years, it has continued to grow exceedingly, and without control, is now spinning down a spiral of self-destruction and extinction. The coronavirus comes from that. If you think about it positively, doesn’t it seem like we were given instructions on how to survive?

――Depending on how we control that, we might be still alive in 5000 years.

Sugimoto: A few people might be still alive. There may be a scenario in which a nuclear war exterminates one-tenth of humanity. Well, in the past, people would say that it’s the hand of God controlling the whole thing, but with the modernization of our times, our devotion to religion wavers, and there is almost no need for a god or a Buddha; part of that is probably because of the recent change in human consciousness. I think that human beings can’t produce poetry and art without spirituality. I think that religion will come back to life.

――The Enoura Observatory’s “Winter Solstice Light-Worship Tunnel” is made to look at the sunlight perfectly penetrating the tunnel on the morning of the winter solstice. How does it feel to experience that?

Sugimoto: It’s mystical. The morning sun I saw one year before the opening of the Observatory was the most wonderful. With the West-high/East-low atmospheric pressure pattern, which is common for Japanese winters, the air becomes especially clear, and the view looks beautiful. From the year we inaugurated the Observatory, the winter solstice has begun to shift to January, so by the winter solstice in December, there is still some kind of autumn rain front typical of the end of autumn, which is warm, cloudy and rainy. The earth’s environment has really changed.

――It’s fortuitous that you’ve decided to measure climate change. Now that some years have passed from the Observatory’s inauguration, is there anything else you have noticed?

Sugimoto: Well, after collecting various things, you start noticing how humans are involved in art and the history of its degradation.

――Art’s degradation?

Sugimoto: The cornerstone of the Hōryū-Ji Temple built in the Asuka period has a better shape and has a stronger presence than the cornerstone of the Gangō-Ji built in the Tenpyō period. From Kamakura and the Muromachi period, people started trying to make things easier and less time consuming, which became easier thanks to better technology, but the more that happens, the more we lose mystical images. Eventually, we got to today’s world. That’s why Ōya stone, for example, doesn’t need any kind of machinery to carve and make it look like it comes from ancient times. On the other hand, even without tens of thousands of people cutting and carrying stones, by using bulldozers and backhoes, even a single, even a single artist with limited incom can do it; maybe the fact that it’s possible is both good and bad at the same time.

――Will the Enoura Observatory continue to change?

Sugimoto: Well, I always feel like being on-site, and I’ve been collecting quite the number of things, one after another, like stones and various items. So, it’s more like I’m organizing rather than planning anything. I’m currently planning to build another gallery for antique art. The design is almost finished, so I would like to start construction around 2022.

――It’d be interesting to run into some antiques while out on a walk.

――The tea room “Uchōten” (In Japanese, listen to the rain) is really interesting, and I love the pun in the name (Uchōten means ecstasy written in different ideograms); it gives some sort of effortlessness to the whole thing. How do you feel about puns?

Sugimoto: When they come out, there’s no stopping them (laughs).

――Like when they start connecting more and more with each other?

Sugimoto: Yes, it’s like rhyming.

――It’s like waka poetry. Tales of Enoura contains waka poems for each chapter, and the postscript even ends with a pun*: “Where did you come from, Tales of Enoura?” (laughs)

*The pun is clear in Japanese, since “where did you come from, Tales of Enoura” becomes “doko kara kitan, Enoura Kitan,” which rhymes.

Sugimoto: It suddenly creeps up on you right at the end(laughs). I added the poems after I finished writing the text. I thought it would be perfect to have text, photography and poetry; just like the Holy Trinity. I wrote them in about a week. The idea to write poems actually came from the fact that I participated in a TV show on NHK by the name of “Haiku” in 2016; I also performed some haiku poetry at the exhibition “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lost Human Genetic Archive” at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum under the alias of “Akkerakan” (In Japanese, “akkerakan” means spacing out).

――You went for a pun there too!

Sugimoto: Most of my poems are, rather than haiku, more like kyōka poems, for which I use a different alias: “Suttonkyō” (In Japanese, “suttonkyō” means airhead). I actually have a lot of books from the Heian period, and somehow I’ve been able to experience that world through them. I can definitely understand how antique art influences me; it’s overwhelming. With such unexpected connections, all of a sudden I made my debut as a poet. And now, as a calligrapher too.

During the interview, there was a large piece of wood in the atelier which had “Pierce the blue sky” written on it. It’s the title of a 「Taiga Drama」 that was announced at a later date. The main character is Shibusawa Eiichi, known as the “father of Japanese capitalism,” and who will also become the new face of the ten-thousand-yen bills. The calligraphy was excellent, written in splendid upward brush strokes, representing Shibusawa’s innovative spirit and the development of Japan’s capitalist economy. Sugimoto, who wrote it, referred to it as an “Daiji na Daiji”.

Edit Jun Ashizawa(TOKION)
Translation Leandro Di Rosa

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