Japan Foundation Exhibition: Reinterpreting “Distance”

TOKYO, April 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The Japan Foundation is holding an online exhibition, “11 Stories on Distanced Relationships: Contemporary Art from Japan,” until May 5.

Organized by one of Japan’s leading agencies, the exhibition emerged on the back of the question of how people might go about (re)building connections with a world adapting to new realities brought about by the coronavirus.

The exhibition introduces the works of 11 Japanese and Japan-based contemporary artists, centered on new pieces commissioned on the theme of “translating distance.”

Psychological or physical distances have never been easy to reach across, or reduce.

Nowadays, however, distance has emerged as something people must learn to live with.

This exhibition has been created to deliver works that earnestly address this kind of distance–from Japan to people everywhere, wherever they are in the world.

The 11 participating artists are ARAKI Yu, HAN Ishu, IIYAMA Yuki, KOIZUMI Meiro, MOHRI Yuko, NOGUCHI Rika, OKUMURA Yuki, SATO Masaharu, SAWA Hiraki, YANAI Shino, and YOSHIDA Shinya.

Each takes experimental approaches to explore the possibilities of online presentation with various media, including video, sound, animation, and livestreaming (*).