teamLab: Hidden Traces of Rice Terraces | Kitaibaraki
Exhibitions
In Iwin, where Okakura Tenshin, a modern Japanese scholar and art critic, lived in his later years, there is an inaccessible mountain along the shore.
Coming out of the deep mountain forest, there is a valley.
There are the remains of rain-fed rice terraces, now a swamp covered with reeds.
They look like secret rice terraces.
Considering the long existence of nature and the continued presence of human activities, we decided to create art works with the remains of rice terraces hidden in the forest.
Then, walking through the forest covering the ruins of rice terraces and investigating the vegetation, we wanted to turn the entire forest covering the ruins of rice terraces into an art space that blends in with the surrounding plants.
teamLab's project Digitized Nature explores how nature can become art. The idea of the project is that immaterial digital technology can turn nature into art without harming it.
The works explore how the existence of these forms can be used to create a place where we can transcend the boundaries of our understanding of the continuity of time and feel the long continuity of life. Using these manifestations of long-term presence, we can try to transcend boundaries and understand the long continuities of time, and how we can continue to accumulate meaning in this place even today.