“In Between… Us?”—created as part of the project “Encounters with the Unknown” by 2025 CCBT Artist Fellow Yamauchi Shota —will be exhibited at the MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL Annex.
To embody its mission of “Discovery,” “Development,” “Co-creation,” and “Collaboration,” Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] conducts “CCBTx”—an initiative involving partnerships with diverse collaborators across various fields, both in Japan and abroad.
The 2025 CCBT artist fellow Yamauchi Shota’s Encounters with the Unknown project is an attempt to envisage new forms of communication by exploring relationships that emerge beyond verbal dialogue, starting from the question of what is the unknown.
“In Between… Us?” is a performance installation that explores the meaning of “the unknown.”
At the heart of the work is a white structure reminiscent of tree roots, nerves, or a skull. Its form is inspired by the concept of a rhizome. This rhizome structure changes its state as it senses the surrounding sounds, voices, and environmental changes. It takes in the voices, lights, and various events that occur in that place, and changes its appearance moment by moment as if finding new meaning in them. Its behavior becomes detached from the artist’s intentions and gradually moves beyond his control.
In performance, “voice” plays a crucial role. Vocalizations that precede words, and the emotions contained within them, influence the rhizome and the environment, updating their state. As voices overlap, separate, and resonate, new relationships that didn’t exist before may be born. It’s as if we ourselves are witnessing the emergence of communication that has yet to have a name or form.
To what is that voice directed? Is the change in the rhizome a response? It’s even uncertain whether what’s happening there can be called a “dialogue.” In a space where performers, rhizomes, voices, light, sound, and viewers influence and transform each other, “In Between… Us?” brings to light the existence of the “unknown” that slips through the cracks of understanding and classification.
Photo: Haraguchi Ryota, Direction: Kikuchi Masashi (Nippachi Factory) (Left)／Photo: Nishiyama Koichi (Right)
MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL Annex
ART in the PARK — Discover the signs of a new sensibility in Yoyogi Park.
Yoyogi Park is a public space where diverse people come and go, and where their activities and expressions intersect, fostering a variety of urban cultures and communities.
This project will focus on the unique characteristics of Yoyogi Park.
I walk through the park. I pass people. And there, I find art.
An unexpected encounter with a work of art can spark new relationships between people and expression, and between people themselves, awakening their individual sensibilities. These small changes, in turn, can lead to a new culture.
“MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL Annex” does not present a completed culture, but rather the process itself—how new cultural “signs” emerge through the intersection of different expressions and people in a public space.
This project features works by three artists: images of people transforming into clusters of light, structures that respond to visitors and the environment, and murals that change their appearance with the passage of day and night. Each work transforms in its relationship with people and the environment in a different way, creating a new landscape in Yoyogi Park.
Artwork and people, people and people, and artwork and the environment. Through unexpected relationships that arise in the open space of Yoyogi Park, we open up new perspectives and sensibilities to the everyday life of the city.
Exhibiting Artists: Isomura Dan, Yamauchi Shota, Yonezawa Shu
MYAF Annex is a highlight program of “ARTE TOKYO.”
ARTE TOKYO：https://artetokyo.jp/ja/
MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL Annex：https://artetokyo.jp/ja/programs/meet_your_art_festival_annex/
