Project Overview (What is ART MEETS TOKYO?)

ART MEETS TOKYO is a new collaborative art project launched in conjunction with the opening of the 23rd Japan Media Arts Festival Exhibition on Saturday, September 19. The project is jointly organized by The Chain Museum, Rhizomatiks Architecture, and David Watts.

This experimental project is aimed at current students and emerging artists who have only recently graduated and will present their work in everyday spaces rather than in conventional venues such as museums or galleries. Its purpose is to create new points of contact between art, society, and people, and to generate new discoveries and values. The project is not bound by genre: installation, video, painting, media art, music, and performance are all welcomed. Its defining feature is that it prioritizes each artist’s individual mode of expression and offers visitors an experience that can only happen in that specific place.

The inaugural exhibition of this memorable first edition takes place at Dōngxī Restaurant & Sakaba, a restaurant and bar located on the fifth floor of the hotel sequence MIYASHITA PARK, which opened in Shibuya on August 1, 2020.

Five artists and artist groups with different modes of expression were selected, and their works are installed throughout the venue while making use of spaces shaped by social distancing. After researching the site and developing their exhibition plans, each artist has created a setting in which visitors can encounter the artworks while dining and experience an everyday environment transformed into something unusual.

Through the power of art, an ordinary space is transformed into a “small and unique museum.” The project seeks to explore, expand, and develop forms of expression that are possible precisely in this era, through a process of experimentation and collaboration with a wide range of people.

For artists, this project offers a place to challenge new forms of expression, expand their points of contact with the public, and create opportunities for more people to learn about their work. For viewers, it provides time to cultivate new discoveries and sensibilities through the questions raised by the artists. At the same time, it offers an opportunity to discover, support, and nurture the next generation of artists.

Dates: September 14–27, 2020
Venue: sequence MIYASHITA PARK, Shibuya
Website: https://artsticker.app/events/247