TURN chakai

The talk serves to share ideas on how the future of institutions and their role in society will evolve in the (post-)Corona era, in the context that the pandemic has encouraged the use of technology for networking, but the resulting social distance has generated new problems and encouraged the emotionalisation of the public-media.

 

TURN chakai, Tea Ceremony of TURN project, is an international meeting platform where Tokyo University of the Arts meets its overseas partner institutions* with the subject ‘to question the Earth and Humanity with Art’. Yet, no actual tea will be served in the ‘chakai’ (tea ceremony), instead, we offer a space where the both parties could exchange their own feelings, just like an old-style tea ceremony room, spending a moment together to create something by hand or to share thoughts of each other. In the exhibition hall, 12 bamboo structures represent the tea ceremony rooms (‘chashitsu’). In the chashitsu of the center, dialogues between faculty members of Tokyo University of the Arts and partner institutions who attend online (‘International exchange chakai’) over the subject to exchange feelings will take place. The other 11 chashitsu are the exhibition and workshop spaces for introducing TURN overseas programs (‘workshop chashitsu’); the artists who took part in the past programs conduct workshops for visitors associated with the program contents. The floor of the hall is filled with cardboards and visitors will freely glue pieces of blue paper on them that will become like an ocean. In this way, each chashitsu will be connected with the sea, so that the whole exhibition will make a unique landscape. Any visitors can participate in the activities.