On October 10, 2020, in partnership with cities worldwide that creatively use public space, Zou-no-Hana Terrace held Futurescape Summit Vol. 1 with the aim of exchanging experiences and insights.

The second part of the summit featured presentations from three speakers: Yukiko Gondo, Executive Director of the Culture, Art and Creative City Promotion Department, Culture and Tourism Bureau, City of Yokohama; Tsutomu Okada, Art Director of Zou-no-Hana Terrace; and the artist Kyota Takahashi. This was followed by a crosstalk with the guests from the first part to bring the summit to a close.

Speaker: Yukiko Gondo (Executive Director of the Culture, Art and Creative City Promotion Department, Culture and Tourism Bureau, City of Yokohama)

With 3.76 million residents, Yokohama is the largest municipality in Japan in terms of population. Its roots go back 161 years to 1859, when it was the first place to open up to foreign trade and end the policy of isolation that had continued in Japan for over two centuries. At the time, it was no more than a village of a hundred households, but new culture, technology, and human resources subsequently gathered in Yokohama, and it would become a leading force in the modernization of Japan.

During World War II, the city suffered devasting damage and as it underwent recovery, it incorporated city planning ideas from quite an early stage. The city set out to redesign itself in a way that preserved its identity as a foundational place in the modernization of Japan while also creating an attractive urban space.

But as Tokyo increasingly developed during the period of rapid economic growth, the very closely located Yokohama found itself relegated to a commuter town: a place from where people left in the mornings to go to Tokyo to work and then came back to at night. Despite being a very large city, its nighttime population was far higher than its daytime one, an issue that led to a desire in the second half of the twentieth century to improve the city center, resulting in the launch of the Minato Mirai 21 initiative. The plan was proposed in 1965 and construction began in 1983, meaning the development is now ongoing for around forty years.

Entering the twenty-first century, simply developing a central business district was not enough, and a new initiative was launched in 2004—Creative City Yokohama—as a way to revitalize the Kannai district, where Zou-no-Hana Terrace is located. The context for this was the declining number of historical buildings, the rising office vacancy rate, and changes to socioeconomic structures. The city made efforts to entice creative people to Yokohama in order to promote culture and the arts, and the creative industries. Pursuing policies that combine both soft and hard approaches—simultaneously harnessing public space that incorporates urban design and reshaping a city center that better demonstrates the distinct appeal of Yokohama—seems characteristic of the way that Yokohama does things.

One of the lead projects is making use of existing facilities, historical buildings, vacant offices, and public spaces to form creative districts where artists and creative talent can stay and present their work. These bases or hubs are managed by nonprofits or the private sector on behalf of the City of Yokohama. Some of the projects we have done using public space include “Kannaigai Open!,” in which artists and creatives in the Kannai and Kangai areas let members of the public into their workplaces, and Smart Illumination Yokohama.

While Yokohama continues to strengthen its city center, the excessive concentration of people in Tokyo remains a major problem. But in terms of what comes after the coronavirus pandemic, which is something we are discussing today, I think that we will see places where people can live, work, and interact, and have different kinds of experiences increasingly gain in value, and so I hope to further develop the efforts we have made until now.

Speaker: Tsutomu Okada (Art Director, Zou-no-Hana Terrace)

I am a curator at Wacoal Art Center, which is a privately run institution in Tokyo. With the know-how we built up there, we have been running Zou-no-Hana Terrace since 2009. The name, which literally means “elephant nose,” derives from the shape of the bay that apparently resembles an elephant’s nose. It is located right in the middle of the green public space in the port area, so many of projects we do make use of the surrounding park, which is one of our missions.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Zou-no-Hana Terrace was shut for two months. During that time, the site was lit up in blue to express our gratitude, respect, and support for all the people striving to combat the virus, not least medical workers.

I would like to introduce an initiative that led to our desire to make public space more fun, which is our theme this time. Smart Illumination Yokohama was envisioned as an event to promote nighttime tourism in order to eliminate the problem that because it is a neighboring city to Tokyo, visitors to Yokohama tend to go back to the capital at night. It was launched in 2011, which, as you know, was the year the Great East Japan Earthquake happened and ushered in a paradigm shift in Japan. We found ourselves in a situation whereby we had to really rethink our lives from the bottom up and so, taking that on board, we launched this globally unique illuminations event that combined artistic creativity with environmentally friendly and energy-saving technology, all brought together under the umbrella of “smart.” The event was held until last year.

The City of Yokohama has also engaged enthusiastically with the sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations, such as establishing the Yokohama SDGs Design Center, and it was also decided to stop Smart Illumination Yokohama for now and develop it further. The plan that emerged from this was the Futurescape Project.

This was envisioned for the tenth anniversary of the Zou-no-Hana last year, when we held an open-call project in order to tear down the barriers that separate artists and audiences, and surmise the extent to which people want to enjoy public space. We collected a hundred ideas that imagined the future landscape in which Zou-no-Hana Park becomes an even more comfortable space, and then organized a hundred programs attempting to make these ideas a reality. I will introduce a few of these.

Lots of things took place, from a performance in the park to a musical recital and a fashion show of wheelchairs for the disabled. We next wanted to create a new smart illuminations event and new Futurescape Project against a backdrop of these initiatives we have done until now, hoping to make public space that allows everyone to flex their creativity, to be a project that not only provides a platform for art or but also resonates with all global citizens.

This idea was something that we had last year, but the coronavirus pandemic has since meant we once again face serious social dilemmas like we did when we conceived the Smart Illumination event. But I think it is our mission to overcome that and we are always thinking about this with artists.

For one program for this year’s Futurescape Project, children are the artists. The kids who started it would apparently misread “tobacco” on a sign as “taba-zed.” This inspired an artwork: a candy stand called Taba-Z, made by kids, for kids. In Japan, there used to be lots of these kinds of kiosks and this is an attempt to recreate one. For the Futurescape Project, the children are taking turns to run the shop and sell sweets, in person or remotely via the internet.

In Japan, there is a unique kind of bar called a “snack,” with a female proprietor known as the “mama” and where customers sing karaoke. We were wondering about how people can have fun during the pandemic and so we decided to open a snack bar where you use sign language. At the bar, people sing renditions of “Blue Light Yokohama,” the most famous song about Yokohama, in sign language.

We also harnessed the internet to combine online and offline spaces. For example, this is a project led by Yasuaki Kakehi of the University of Tokyo, where blowing on your smartphone results in bubbles coming out of a machine set up in Zou-no-Hana Park.

The World Wide Fund for Nature also took part in this year’s Futurescape Project, where it gave a presentation about what Japan will look like if the environment continues deteriorating like it is now. We still don’t have the answers, but the circumstances in which we find ourselves at present mean we are working with artists to do what we can in ways that are beautiful and fun.

Speaker: Kyota Takahashi (artist)

I will talk to you about “Hikari no Mi Smile Atelier,” a remote workshop that was held during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Shining Smile Fruit” is a participatory art project in which people draw smiling faces onto the plastic protective bags used to grow fruit, into which are placed LED lights and then hung from trees to create a colorful nightscape.

I came up with the “Shining Smile Fruit” project immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake. I was inspired by how the residents in the disaster areas wanted children to experience the joy of illuminations even though they were living in conditions where electricity and such basic infrastructures were no longer available. As a project for children in Yokohama to exchange smiling faces with the children in Rikuzentakata, we made the “Shining Smile Fruit” pieces together with local kids in Rikuzentakata at the end of 2011, and these were then exhibited on trees in Yamashita Park in Yokohama. Though started in Yokohama, the “Shining Smile Fruit” project has now spread nationwide and over ten years cultivated smiles on the faces of more than 100,000 people.

“Shining Smile Fruit” prizes the communication that takes place over the course of workshops where people think about smiling faces and then draw one. But the coronavirus pandemic has made it very hard to hold workshops in person, so we wondered if there was an alternative approach we could take, and so we came up with “Smile Atelier,” which takes place online and allows anyone around the world to participate. While held remotely, we incorporated the fun of an in-person workshop as much as possible.

[Takahashi demonstrates drawing a smiling face on the website.] The smiling faces created here are sent to me when you press the final button. These drawings of smiling faces posted from anywhere across the world were printed onto fruit bags by a UV printer and then exhibited on trees in Zou-no-Hana Park.

The other day, we held a live online workshop with children in Hong Kong and Japan, each in their respective locations. This was a very important experience for me where I could sense new potential. This single screenshot tells the whole story. Overflowing with the joy they felt when they completed their work as well as the happiness from spending a fun time together, this was a moment when I could pass on feelings to children in faraway Hong Kong.

To the kids in Hong Kong, I sent photos of the finished exhibition and the “Shining Smile Fruit” piece they had each made. I think that they expanded the scope of their imaginations, knowing that their work is exhibited faraway in Japan. I was encouraged by this: it is a power unique to art.

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Discussion

Yoshie Ota: Though we are searching for ways to live with the coronavirus, achieving the SDGs is also a major goal for people around the world today. We wondered if art is able to do something about these social challenges and have attempted to engage in social experiments exploring, in particular, the use of public space. For this project, we have operated under the assumption that the free imagination and behavior of artists can inspire members of the public, and could expand approaches the public sphere and the use of public space. What does everyone think about the effects art has or its potential effects in regard to these social issues?

Lo Yan-yan: The pandemic has led to various restrictions, but it also means we can try different approaches or artistic ways of doing things. Lots of new ideas are emerging and we must now continue to develop things from artistic perspectives. It is important for people to feel that they are members of society. During the pandemic, we engaged with digital strategies, creating public art maps online, holding workshops remotely, and offering a phone app with an augmented reality experience as well as exhibition tours hosted by curators and artists. By doing this, we hope to reach a broader audience and to encourage people to interpret our projects in their own ways.

Abbe Robinson: I think that all these kinds of situations present an interesting challenge for artists. Art always reflects human experience, so I think the current situation is going to create a lot of opportunities to explore how it’s affected us, both individually and collectively. Some of the projects that will come out of that will be really fascinating. It will change the way in which people engage with the public realm. We have a lot to explore in the way that we manage that as festival directors.

Our festival normally takes place very much in the confines of the city center, but taking our project up into the sky this year means we will potentially engage with a new audience. They will be able to watch the festival just by standing in their own gardens in their own areas of the city and looking up, without having to travel into the city center. By adapting and changing to the circumstances of the pandemic, we’re actually going to engage with different communities and demographics, which is quite exciting.

Lucy Dusgate: I think art will be part of the gateway back to a new normality. I think it’ll be something that helps all of us and should be proactively seized and taken on board by authorities as a way of connecting societies back together. It is incredibly important for people to feel like they still have a sense of home, a sense of touch, a sense of being part of a community, whether that be a local one or an international one. We should keep trying to work together both internationally as well as locally for our communities in our neighborhoods.

Shinichiro Moriya: These are wonderful things to hear. Tsutomu Okada, could you please tell us about the response you saw to the Futurescape Project, and your opinion about the role of art in this regard?

Tsutomu Okada: It left me with a renewed feeling that it is such a waste if we don’t harness the creative, free perspectives of artists for people’s lifestyles or community development. Listening to what everyone has said today, there are some differences in terms of the sense of distance between art, citizens, and public space, so I have hope that by continuing to deepen these discussions, we can create public space and cities that are more enriching.

Moriya: Kyota Takahashi, did you come to realize any possibilities because of the coronavirus pandemic?

Kyota Takahashi: I gained a renewed sense that the joy of seeing the smiling faces of children and of making something together does not change. When life feels incredibly restricted, my desire to connect with others through online platforms is stronger and without this impetus, the “Fruits of Light” project would not have reached children globally so quickly. In a sense, we could transform adversity into an opportunity to take things to the next level, so the outcome for me personally was very positive.

Moriya: Listening to the discussion today, several keywords left an impression. This was a summit in which I felt that artistic freedom and, on the other hand, responsibility for self-expression might well open up new possibilities during the coronavirus pandemic, and have the potential to impact the layout of the post-coronavirus society as a whole in extremely positive ways.

Yukiko Gondo: Thank you, everyone. I was encouraged by how it is precisely these kinds of tough times when we should seize the opportunity to try out new things in the new normal. It is in just such times as these that we need to recognize diversity, join forces, and embark on efforts with a keen sense that we are all members of society. How can we flex creativity while working to shape the public sphere? I am newly resolved to set up environments for making endeavor after endeavor freely yet responsibly. I hope we can build on this opportunity by remaining in touch with one another in the future. Thank you very much for participating in our discussion today.