Past Exhibitions
Thu, Jul 23, 2020 - Sun, Aug 29, 2021
Connecting people with the city through art that plays, performs, and resonates
Inter+Play is a three-part exhibition that celebrates the tenth anniversary of Arts Towada, the city-wide initiative that promotes art throughout the city of Towada and along its main thoroughfare of Kanchogai Avenue.
Since its inception, Arts Towada has been a wellspring of creativity and a source of inspiration. At its heart is the Towada Art Center, which has always considered the “interplay” between artwork, audience, and city. This exhibition is a manifestation of the ethos behind this ambitious project.
On display throughout the entirety of the exhibition is a large-scale outdoor sculpture and bench by Suzuki Yasuhiro, who uses familiar objects to create works that excite the senses. The bench is shaped like the city of Towada, whose gravitational pull ripples across the bench and makes waves beyond the city. Also on display is a stark-white gallery space in a building in downtown Towada, created by art collective 目 [mé], whose works have attracted much attention at art festivals and large-scale solo exhibitions in recent years.
Highlights inside the museum will include works by artists TSUDA Michiko, evala, and Matsubara Megumi at the Towada Art Center. Tsuda’s installation will use mirrors, video cameras, and projectors to confound the senses, while those who experience evala’s work will be immersed in a sea of sound. Matsubara will present a brand-new work based on the color red, developed through research conducted during her stay in Towada.
The exhibition period will also see Mondai Kodo Trio perform music and dance in the exhibition gallery.
Year-long Exhibits:
– Suzuki Yasuhiro [exhibited in front of the Towada Art Center]
– 目 [mé] [exhibited in the city of Towada]
Part 1 Artists:
– Tsuda Michiko
– evala
– Matsubara Megumi
Performance:
– Problem Behaviour Trio (Nomura Makoto, Sakuma Shin & Jareo Osamiu
[Scheduled to be held once during each part of the exhibition]
*Tickets to view evala’s Anechoic Sphere ー Haze are distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis. Only a limited number of visitors will be able to view the artwork due to the capacity of the gallery. Thank you for your understanding.
*Image: MATSUBARA Megumi, Truth/Freedom, Inter+Play: Arts Towada 10th Anniversary Exhibition (Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2020)
Photo: Oyamada Kuniya
Artist. Born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1979.
Suzuki Yasuhiro’s works add new dimensions to familiar objects as he continually asks questions about how we see things and how we perceive the world. He has held solo exhibitions at the Art Tower Mito, Contemporary Art Gallery (2014) and the Hakone Open Air Museum (2017). He garnered attention for his Zipper Boat, which debuted at the 2010 Setouchi Triennale, when it was displayed on Tokyo’s Sumida River in 2018. His work was exhibited at the fourth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2011, and in 2016, he represented Japan at the inaugural London Design Biennale. In 2014, he received the Mainichi Design Award. Suzuki is a professor at Musashino Art University and also works in the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo.
Photo: Nakagawa Masako
Art collective founded in 2013.
Mé comprises artist Kojin Haruka, director Minamigawa Kenji, and production manager Masui Hirofumi. They value teamwork that utilizes the individual strengths of each member, which allows them to develop works that attract us to the endless uncertainty of the real world, placing an emphasis on exhibition spaces and the role of the visitor, regardless of any specific genre or methodology. Their major works include Unreliable Reality – The Where of This World (2014, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo) and Elemental Detection (2016, Saitama Triennale).
Photo: Tsushima Takahiro
Artist. Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1980.
Tsuda Michiko completed a doctoral program in Film and New Media Studies at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work focuses on the characteristics of video and takes on a variety of forms, including installation, video, and performance. In recent years, she has performed with Megumi Kamimura as part of the unit baby tooth. Her work has been shown at a number of group shows, including Aichi Triennale 2019 and Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions, as well as the solo exhibition The Day After Yesterday (2015, TARO NASU, Tokyo). In 2012, Tsuda participated in the artist-in-residence (AIR) program of the Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (ACAC), and in 2019, spent time in New York as a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council (ACC).
Musician and sound artist.
Born in 1976 in Kyoto. Making full use of 3D sound systems as new instruments, evala launched the spatial and immersive music experience See by Your Ears in 2016, in which he hints at how sound particles bounce and billow in a completely dark space. His major works include Octyon Megalotis (2017, Sonar+D, Barcelona), Our Muse (2018, ACC, Gwangju), and Acoustic Vessel Odyssey (2018, SXSW, Austin), which featured sounds generated using SONY’s Sonic Surf VR wavefront synthesis technology played across an array of 576 speakers. evala is also active in sound production for the stage, screen, and public spaces. In January 2020, he launched the world’s first “invisible cinema” with his aural film Sea, See, She—To Whom I Have Yet To See.
Born in Tokyo in 1977.
Matsubara Megumi creates spaces that weave together various media including text, sculpture, photography, and phenomenon of light to achieve an exquisite balance between presence and absence. Her solo shows include The Blind Dream (2014, Douiria Mouassine Museum, Marrakech, Morocco) and A proposal for a textbook to learn Braille, English, and other languages (2015, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia Milano, Italy) and her work has recently been exhibited at 21st DOMANI (2019, National Art Center, Tokyo), Poétique du geste (2018, La Graineterie – centre d’art de la ville de Houilles, France), Aichi Triennale 2016 (2016, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya), and Marrakech Biennale 6 (2016, Palais El Badii, Marrakech, Morocco). Matsubara has also presented architectural works together with ASSISTANT, the interdisciplinary architecture firm co-founded with Hiroi Ariyama in 2002. These works include House of 33 Years (2013, Nara), Korogaru Pavilion (2016, YCAM, Yamaguchi), and It is a Garden (2016, Nagano).
Photo: Matteo Lonardi
Composer and pianist. Born in Nagoya in 1968.
Nomura Makoto’s solo exhibitions include Organic Vegetable (Art Space Niji, Kyoto), and he has participated in a number of group exhibitions, including Textures (Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori), Archway Sound Symposium (Five Years Gallery, London), Makoto Nomura’s Music Room (Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima), and Notations 21 (Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery, New York). He currently serves as director of community programs for the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra.
Behaviour Problem Trio
Behaviour Problem Trio is a unit comprised of Nomura Makoto, Sakuma Shin, and Jareo Osamu. They bring people together from all different backgrounds to conduct joint productions that transcend rules, conventions, and common sense for the sake of creative expression. Their improvisational performances push physical boundaries in a dialogue with people and environments. In 2019, they held Nomura, Jareo & Sakuma’s Behaviour Problem Show: Practice Pieces for Becoming an Outsider at the Toyonaka Performing Arts Center.
Traditional Javanese Dancer. Born in Osaka in 1968.
Sakuma Shin has been involved in projects that promote collaboration, improvisation, and communication. These include Body Talk, a clinical philosophy project initiated by Osaka University, and Hiru no Dance, a new kind of dance between dance and people with disabilities created together with Tanpopo-no-ye in Nara. He is also the co-author of Social Art: How Art and People with Disabilities Can Change Society (Sōsharu āto : shōgai no aru hito to āto de shakai o kaeru) (Bungeisha Co., Ltd.).
Behaviour Problem Trio
Behaviour Problem Trio is a unit comprised of Nomura Makoto, Sakuma Shin, and Jareo Osamu. They bring people together from all different backgrounds to conduct joint productions that transcend rules, conventions, and common sense for the sake of creative expression. Their improvisational performances push physical boundaries in a dialogue with people and environments. In 2019, they held Nomura, Jareo & Sakuma’s Behaviour Problem Show: Practice Pieces for Becoming an Outsider at the Toyonaka Performing Arts Center.
Photo: Kusamoto Toshie
Choreographer and dancer. Born in Osaka in 1965.
In 1991, Jareo Osamu formed a dance unit with Misako Terada. But in recent years, he has focused on solo work as well as projects for people with disabilities, the elderly, and displaced persons, working to develop a practice that connects art with society. In 2016, he published his first book, Dancing in the Nursing Home: Choreography, Care, and the Birth of Totsu Totsu Dance (Rojin Home de Umareta “Totsu Totsu Dance” – Dance no Youna, Kaigo no Youna) (Shobunsha). Jareo serves as a specially appointed professor in the Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts at Rikkyo University.
Behaviour Problem Trio
Behaviour Problem Trio is a unit comprised of Nomura Makoto, Sakuma Shin, and Jareo Osamu. They bring people together from all different backgrounds to conduct joint productions that transcend rules, conventions, and common sense for the sake of creative expression. Their improvisational performances push physical boundaries in a dialogue with people and environments. In 2019, they held Nomura, Jareo & Sakuma’s Behaviour Problem Show: Practice Pieces for Becoming an Outsider at the Toyonaka Performing Arts Center.
Photo: Miura Hiroyuki
Title
Date
Location
Towada Art Center
Hours
9:00–17:00 (Last admission 30 minutes before closing)
Closed
Mondays
except for National Holidays, in which case the museum is open on the holiday and closed the following Tuesday
*Open August 2, August 10.
Admission
Exhibition + Permanent Collection: 1,200 yen
Exhibition only: 800 yen
100 yen/ticket discount for groups of 20 or more
High school students and younger: Free
Organized by
Towada Art Center
Sponsored by
Création Baumann
In Cooperation with
Aomori Contemporary Art Centre
Endorsed by
The To-o Nippo Press, The Daily-Tohoku Shimbun Inc., Aomori Broadcasting Corporation, Aomori Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Asahi Broadcasting Aomori Co., Ltd., & Towada City Board of Education
Curators
KANAZAWA Kodama, WASHIDA Meruro
Assistant Curators
MITOME Sayaka, NAKAGAWA Chieko, SATOMURA Mari
Suzuki Yasuhiro, Quantum Apples
Arts Towada 10th Anniversary Exhibition (Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2020)
Photo: Oyamada Kuniya
目 [mé], Exhibition Plan
Tsuda Michiko, You would come back there to see me again the following day
Arts Towada 10th Anniversary Exhibition (Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2020)
Photo: Oyamada Kuniya
evala, Sea, See, She (Live Ver.)
2019, photo: Kuroha Masashi
*Reference work
Matsubara Megumi, Jnan Sbil / Freedom Garden
2014
from The Blind Dream (Douiria Mouassine Museum, Morocco)
*Reference work
Behaviour Problem Trio, Nomura, Jareo & Sakuma’s Behaviour Problem Show: Practice Pieces for Becoming an Outsider (TOYONAKA ART TRIBE #2)
(Toyonaka Performing Arts Center, Osaka, 2019)
*Reference work
1. Outside the Museum: Suzuki Yasuhiro’s sculpture leaps outdoors and mé creates an exhibition downtown
An outdoor sculpture by Suzuki Yasuhiro will be on display in front of the Towada Art Center. The sculpture doubles as a bench made to look like a tree stump in the geographical shape of the city of Towada. Visitors are invited to have a seat and enjoy the museum lawn. The sculpture features apples that appear to be drawn in by the gravitational pull of Towada, making waves across the bench and beyond the city. Art collective mé transforms a building in downtown Towada to create a space that looks like it was ripped straight out of the Towada Art Center, bringing the exhibition out of the museum and into the city.
2. Inside the Museum: New senses awakened by Tsuda Michiko, evala, and Matsubara Megumi
In the exhibition space, visitors step into immersive installations that awaken the senses. In Tsuda Michiko’s installation, visitors walk through a maze of mirrors, video cameras, projectors, and empty frames, which provide glimpses of themselves just moments before, making for a disorienting experience. evala presents an immersive sound installation that bathes visitors in a sea of sound. Matsubara Megumi, inspired by the rocky outcrops of Lake Towada and the volcanic fires that burn beneath the surface, has created a new work based on the color red for an experience where the earth resonates within the body.
3. Behaviour Problem Trio brings their experimental music and dance performance to a museum for the first time
A project in which musician Nomura Makoto, Javanese dancer Sakuma Shin, and contemporary dancer Jareo Osamu approach “problematic behaviour” through music and dance. The three artists come together to create something truly unique, interacting— each in their own way—with people and spaces around the world. Here, they will be in collaboration with the museum’s exhibition space. They will sneak into the museum at night, when it is usually closed, and perform an experiment, interacting with both the exhibition space and the artworks themselves. Come and experience a spectacular performance where even the performers don’t know what will happen.
