Exhibition/event has ended.
Life is beautiful: Clothing, Food & Plants, Shelter— Plants become clothing and shelter that protect life, and food that sustains life. By eatrip.
Gyre Gallery
Finished
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Artists
Koichi Uchida, Teppei Ono, Akari Karugane, Asuka Juba, Tenshin Juba, Akihiro Nikaido, Kazunori Hamana
Yuri Nomura of eatrip explained that the close connections with producers she developed as a chef led her to realize that much of our food comes from plants, and that soil is the source that supports not only plants but all life. Continuing to think of ways in which cooking as a livelihood can become part of this cycle in a manner appropriate to the present age; that activity is what is expressed in the title of this exhibition, “Life is beautiful.” In Japan, the essentials of life have long been expressed as “clothing, food, and shelter.” What kind of lifestyle existed when this phrase was coined? This question arose from Nomura’s encounter with hemp, a plant that was once used in Japan for clothing and food, and was treated as a sacred material with supernatural power in Shinto rituals. From there, the “Clothing” exhibition held in 2021 imagined the future while tracing an archetypal image of Japan, where people made clothing to protect themselves and food to sustain life from a single plant. Two years later, in 2023, the “Shelter” exhibition addressed the question of where we can find truly safe shelter, or a place to exist, in an environment that is inevitably undergoing transformation due to the pandemic and climate change. It was also at this time that she rediscovered how rice plants had been utilized in everything related to clothing and housing, from thatched roofs and earthen walls to pottery and dyeing, and even clothing that protected people from the wind and rain. This exhibition focuses again on rice, a plant that has been used for thousands of years in clothing and housing to protect life, and consumed as food to sustain life, and is fundamental to all aspects of our daily lives, from food to clothing to shelter, from the perspective of food. Focusing on rice straw (the stems left behind after rice grains have been harvested), artists who blend traditional techniques with modern sensibilities to create clothing, furniture, and monuments, along with potters who cultivate plants for food from the earth in fields and create vessels for food as interconnected practices, and various other creators explore the fundamental question, “Why do we (the Japanese people) eat rice?” This exhibition serves as a place for such exploration, and invites those viewing the exhibition to contemplate this fundamental question alongside the artists.
Schedule | Oct 10 (Fri) 2025-Nov 27 (Thu) 2025 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||
| Website | https://en.gyre-omotesando.com/artandgallery/life-is-beautiful-2025/ | ||
| Venue | Gyre Gallery https://en.gyre-omotesando.com/art/ | ||
| Location | 3F Gyre, 5-10-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 | ||
| Access | 4 minute walk from exit 5 at Meiji-jingumae Station on the Chiyoda and Fukutoshin lines. 5 minute walk from exit A1 at Omotesando Station on the Hanzomon, Chiyoda and Ginza lines, 6 minute walk from the Omotesando exit of JR Harajuku Station. | ||
| Phone | 03-3498-6990 | ||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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