REBORN ART FESTIVAL in TOKYO
I went to see “REBORN ART FESTIVAL in TOKYO,” held at “Watarium,” a museum in Gaienmae.
The first comprehensive art festival in the Tohoku region to combine “art,” “music,” and “food”—”Reborn Art Festival 2017” (July 22 – September 10)—was held to great acclaim.
For this exhibition, the stage moves to Tokyo, reconstructing and presenting the displays shown in Ishinomaki City and on the Oshika Peninsula.
Six years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, but each time I visit the Oshika Peninsula, the enormous wall standing between land and sea—the seawall—grows ever higher, and lately it towers like a new border. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the borders around the world, which crumbled bit by bit over the twentieth century, are now once again being erected.
I was astonished at how strangely the works and expressions of the artists who took part in “Reborn Art Festival 2017” connect to exactly this. Right now the whole world is enveloped in tension. Problems over borders, frequent terrorism and conflict, missiles that will not stop, refugees and migrants with nowhere to go. Japan, too, cannot remain a mere bystander.
The various artistic endeavors that unfolded within the city of Ishinomaki and amid the great nature of the Oshika Peninsula created a miraculous beauty. What was happening there (or here, or over there)? This autumn, I would like to think about it together with all of you. For those who could not experience the site firsthand—and of course for those who did make the journey—we present this exhibition here as the next stage.
Summary
“Reborn Art Festival in Tokyo” is a meaningful project that lets you view, right in Tokyo, art that has unfolded out in nature.
It was an exhibition full of a brightness and energy—a sense of moving forward—that leaves you invigorated. Since I couldn’t make it to Ishinomaki, this time I ended up seeing it in Tokyo, but next time I intend to visit the exhibition held in the very region struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
