fog sculpture

Japanese artist, Fujiko Nakaya's Fog Sculpture is a fine spray of mist that drifts over the march pond at the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden. For two hours daily, the fog shortens your view, screening your vision of anything beyond a few metres. 

It reminded me of a Japanese Haiku. It's a confined gesture (both in space and time) that submerges you into another world. For that fleeting moment, the world it creates feels infinite.

yoko ono, louisiana museum of modern art

I mentioned previously that Louisiana Museum Modern Art was my favourite find in Copenhagen. This is a bit of a russian dolls post, but the golden nugget hiding inside- Yoko Ono's exhibition - truly deserves its own post.

To be honest, I thought of Yoko Ono as little more than John Lennon's sidekick prior to this exhibition. By the time I left, I'd developed a heavy infatuation with this woman's inspiring, expansive mind and immense creative energy. Covering everything from installation to film, music, performance art and painting, one thing rang very clear: this prolific artist knows how to generate ideas. As a visitor to the exhibition, both the eyes and mind were truly stimulated. Each work was a dangling carrot, encouraging me to discover more about myself, others and the way we engage with the world.

One of my favourites within the exhibition was the "Telephone Maze." Using layers of glass and clever lighting, this seemingly simple maze was a disorienting experience. Dizzying light refractions threw me of course over and over. For me, the maze quickly became a performance experience with crowds suddenly emerging from nowhere, all gazing at my attempt to navigate the maze. At the heart of the maze was a telephone, which delivered performance based instructions at irregular intervals. My timing didn't coincide with a phone call, so I made my way out, somehow still stumbling my way through a path already travelled.

"We're all water"
Bottles of liquid marked with names of celebrities

"Morning Beams"

teshima art museum

I risked life and limb to get to this museum due to a gross miscalculation of time. Oopsies. But honestly, there is no appropriate limit to what one should risk where Teshima Art Museum is involved. Easily the highlight of my five week journey- acutally, one of the highlights of my life- the experience continues to reverberate, every time I think back.

Teshima Island is located in the Seto Island Inlet and was one of twelve islands participating in the Sentouchi Triennale. Teshima Art museum, designed by Ryue Nishzawa, is not quite a traditional museum, but more like a large architectural installation.

It was raining the day I visited and I was sufficiently frazzled by the bustling ticket office. It was packed out and there was a highly organised system which I struggled to decode. Once given the green light, the experience began via a short walk around the site. The misty sea views and greenery were a welcome palate cleanser, easing the tension of the ticket office in preparation for what was to come. Slowly, the concrete rose from the landscape.

As I stepped into the space, the experience felt immediately unearthly. Enveloped in an undulating concrete volume, my perception of depth was confused. The head height was difficult to read, near and far became almost indistinguishable. Sound quality immediately shifted. Silence was accompanied by the sharp echo of birds and not much more. Light entered via the two oculi, framing the sky like an alter. A piece of string hung beneath the oculus, shifting gently and reverently with the change of wind. Being in that space was overwhelming. It was as if I'd momentarily untied my tether to life and stepped into another place where nature could be appreciated through some other channel. That might sound a bit extreme, but for me, it really felt that extreme.

Upon entering, I was asked not to touch the artwork on the ground. At first I was confused. This is an empty space, is it not? Yet people were silently gathered under the oculus, looking down. Then I spotted it, a water droplet bubbled up from a tiny pore in the concrete floor and rather than being absorbed into the surface, it beaded and slowly traced along the floor. It joined another bead and then another and another, until a small mass of water collected and eventually flowed into a large, shallow puddle under the oculus. I sat on the floor, watching these silent and meandering droplets gather, changing their movement each time.

Sitting there, watching the droplets, listening to the birds and watching the sky deliver a fine stream of rain into the shallow puddle, was the most meditative and exquisitely beautiful celebration of nature I had ever encountered. I think that experience has left a permanent imprint on my memory, never to be forgotten and I suspect, never to be repeated.

[I would have liked to share my own photos but no photos were allowed. Plus I was busy having my mind blow. Images via DesignBoom. Photography by Iwan Baan]

poetic arches

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm currently obsessed with all things Japanese. Is it obvious? I'm writing about Toyo Ito's poetically beautiful Tama Art University Library over on yellowtrace today. Will the beauty of Japan ever cease to amaze me?

[Images via ArchDaily and ArchitectureAU]

vignettes of tokyo

I had heard that Tokyo is a place where east meets west but after visiting, I'm inclined to disagree and say that Tokyo is really it's own glorious beast. From where I was sitting, it seemed to operate on a completely different frequency to the rest of the world- and I mean that in the best way possible.

Meguro River

It's a complex and diverse city which oscillates between a wild over-saturation of the senses to the most gentle moments of quiet contemplation. Yet along every point of Tokyo's multi-faceted spectrum is an incredibly stable sense of cultural identity. It seems to have resisted the tinge of murky globalisation infecting other developed cities, which is such an exciting thing to witness.

Fog Linen Work store

At Calico Cat Cafe, Shinjuku

Everything I encountered felt so uniquely Japanese. Naturally, my observations centred around design and the built environment. The grey concrete contrasting with vivid greenery, a recurring motif of simple gridded tiles lining the subways and low rise houses, the wabi sabi sentiment imbued in the crockery and utensils, the avant garde fashionistas browsing through Comme des Garcons, the hyper modern retail architecture in Ginza and the small scaled timber screened houses lining the old town of Asakusa. All completely varied and yet equally compelling and exciting. I can't pinpoint what ties it all together, or if there is in fact a thread that does, but all aspects of the Japanese design sensibility absolutely struck something inside me. Perhaps it's the freedom from Western thinking that excites me? All I know is that the creative pulse of Japan resonated right through me and it was the most exhilarating ride.

Architecture for Dogs at MA Gallery

Tokujin Yoshioka, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Richard Wilson at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

Yet I'll be honest, it wasn't all roses and sweetness. At times the foreignness of Tokyo was unsettling. I had no idea what was going on half the time (there are a lot of rules and systems) and I must have spent thirty percent of my time lost, disoriented and a little panicked. The endlessly long overpasses and the layers upon layers of sound stimulation certainly didn't help. (This might account for my lack of streetscape photos). The scale of this big city would occasionally dislodge my ability to feel human. Yet just as the scale of the city could abruptly shift from towering high rises to the tiniest, most intimate spaces of retreat, for every hardship, a moment of exquisite pleasure would float my way.

I was so frequently reminded how much I had fallen for the truly wonderful city that is Tokyo.

 

Some Tokyo travel tips

+ Stroll around Megura river. Visit Eva for excellent vintage fashion and drop into Parking for coffee.
+ Explore Daikanyama, including the backstreets for small boutiques and the most incredible menswear you may ever see.
+ Architecture and design book lovers must visit Nanyodo. Totodo also has a great collection of second hand books, including a few rare copies. T-Site is a massive concept bookstore worth dropping into. Commune Gallery and Utrecht independent bookstores sounded amazing but I couldn't find them for the life of me. Damn.
+ Fossick through the vintage shops at Shimokitazawa. I didn't actually buy anything but the energy of the pedestrian scaled streets in this youthful area made the visit worthwhile.
+ Izakaya Ism in Shimokitazawa was the best meal I had by a long shot and the staff were jovial and friendly.
+ Ogle the retail towers by every star-chitect you can think of around Omotesando.
+ Recuperate with a coffee and seriously delicious baked custard cube at Omotesando Koffee, in a renovated house, tucked in the backstreets.
+ While Shibuya generally ruffled my feathers a bit, there's a great pedestrian shopping strip east of Meiji Dori worth exploring which won't test your nerves.
+ For most of the galleries I went to, the seasonal exhibitions were the strength so check the programmes. Having said that, Ando's 21 21 Design Site is worth going to, just for the building. I concentrated on twentieth century to present and despite visiting one to three galleries daily, I still didn't see everything I'd bookmarked.
+ Check the Shift website for current art and design happenings.
+ In case you missed my last post, Baishinka and Ori Higashiya are a must.

[Photos by me]

baishinka, tokyo

My holiday adventure has come to an end and I'm back! After five weeks straight of one mind blowing experience after another, I'm really not sure where to begin. The highlights came in fast and frequent deluges, with two thousand or so photos to show for it. I might need some time to untangle the memories and map out a logical way of retelling the highlights.



Rather than leave you hanging while I unscramble my brain, I just have to share this truly wonderful tea house in Tokyo called Baishinka. This place is so wonderful I think I'm still basking in the afterglow more than a week later. Mixing old and new in terms of both the space and dining experience, a distinctly Japanese note remains a constant- and what a wonderfully sweet and delicious note it is.

Operated by Simplicity, this tea house is located quite far out of downtown Tokyo. I needed to make a special trip out there but it was certainly worthwhile. Sitting in a walled enclosure, the renovated traditional house is entered via a courtyard garden. Inside, I was greeted display bench presenting exquisitely beautiful wagashi (Japanese sweets). 

The tea house itself sits in a separate room. Every moment of the experience is carried out with care and gentle attention; being lead into the tea room, selecting the sweets which are personally presented in bamboo baskets, selecting the tea and of course, the preparation of the tea.

I was seated directly in front of the preparation area and was entranced by the choreography of moving hands, tea cups, ladles, whisks and hot water. Of course, every dish and utensil was oozing with a refined, contemporary wabi sabi aesthetic. To finish, I was served complimentary baked brown sugar chips and roasted tea. Delicious.

I had planned to photograph the courtyard on the way out, but the staff walked me to the door, smiling and waving enthusiastically until I was completely out of sight. Seriously, how could I walk away and not completely love the place? It was absolutely memorable. 

* Warning! If you're planning to go, make sure you screen grab every resource possible to show you the location. As with a lot of places in Tokyo, it's a little tricky to find!

Photos by me.