Less than a month to go until the festival finally open, Designart Tokyo, one of Japan’s largest design and art festivals, has unveiled details, venues, exhibitors and projects from its upcoming event in Tokyo, Japan.

The 2022 design and art festival, themed Together, will take place from October 21 to October 30, 2022 across multiple venues in Tokyo, one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities.

The event will showcase various kinds of works spanning art, design, interior design and fashion. The entire district will be turned into a museum, bridging invaluable encounters and inspirations through interaction with creators. 

With “Together” as this year’s theme, Designart Tokyo will continue to promote design and art from Tokyo to the rest of the world as an international event.

Sustainable & Technology, New Platform with Asian Design, Regeneration and circulation, interior goods to cutting-edge art, fashion and art, Experience of Technology and Art are among the sub-topics of the event to discover. 

Designart Tokyo also presents five notable artists under the age 30 whose works promises for the future of design, including ninanomura, Karyn Lim, Sohma Furutate, messagingleaving and Takaya Mitsunaga. 

The five artists feature young minds shouldering the design and art of tomorrow that have caught the eye of the founders of Designart.

World Architecture Community is media partner of the 2022 Designart Tokyo and will be bringing the latest news from the event. 

Here're a selection of the works to be exhibited at this year's Designart Tokyo.

Enfold type 1 by BCXSY. Image by BCXSY, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Fusion Sculpture 01 by GELCHOP. Image by GELCHOP, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

NEXT CIRCULATION

Sustainable & Technology

Manufacturing and sustainability initiatives are being proactively taken worldwide in various fields to achieve the SDGs toward a sustainable society. In addition to developing materials and technologies, building relationships with partners and educating the next generation are likely to be the keys to producing high-demand, popular products. 

Considering this, Designart Tokyo 2022 will present the NEXT CIRCULATION, a sustainability- and technology-themed exhibition, featuring initiatives by leading corporate brands and creators, as well as a selection of inspiring exhibits that contemplate “beyond” recycling and upcycling. 

Satoshi Itasaka, a designer in the fields of architecture, product, and art, who also works on upcycling, will take charge of the spatial design.

The “Printed Sculpture” art project of LAND LOOP, a brand known for its naturally derived plastics developed by Toyoshima & Co. Ltd., will feature work by GELCHOP and BCXSY.

Messagingleaving (Chialing Chang). Image by Chialing Chang, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Karyn Lim. Photo © Hendra Kusama, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Remarkable Collective Exhibition Offers Encounters with Artworks and Excitement

DESIGNART GALLERY at Hz SHIBUYA New Platform with Asian Design

At this gallery, participating creators include messagingleaving, Karyn Lim, SDANLEY DESIGN WORKS, quantum × Stratasys Japan, ADAM from SOZAI CENTER (KOMORU Ltd. ・M&T).

DESIGNART believes that the time has come for Asia, with its strong economic growth rate and emerging cultural center, to take the lead in terms of creativity as well as technology. 

To this end, this year Designart Tokyo will present DESIGNART GALLERY, a collective exhibition focusing on Asian creators, as a steppingstone to a new platform for building more friendly and progressive relationships with other Asian countries. 

The exhibition will be held at the newly established Hz, an event space with an eye-catching glass facade in the cultural hub of Shibuya.

The Taipei-based creative practice messagingleaving, led by Chialing Chang, will present the lighting and mirror collections that uncover diverse expressions of brass and stainless steel. Karyn Lim will be exhibiting Transformation Bags, a play on geometry to create sculptural forms that can transform into a flat object.

7 designers, 2 days at Ishinomaki Laboratory. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Ibasho Portable Furniture. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

KAISU - Furniture by featured creators

At this section, participating creators include Ishinomaki Laboratory (Keiji Ashizawa, Kenji Ito, Wataru Kumano, Koichi Suzuno, Naoki Terada, Nicolaj Friis Nøddesbo, Shigeki Fujishiro), Shinnosuke Harada/ Junichi Ishigaki/ Ryo Suzuki, NAMAIKI / Mai Suzuki.

The exhibition will feature a collection of furniture works with innovative and adventurous designs at KAISU, a former Japanese-style restaurant in Akasaka, which has been renovated as a new space. In the last 11 years, Ishinomaki Laboratory, founded by architect Keiji Ashizawa, has gained recognition and its concept has spread throughout the world.

This time, returning to its roots, seven architects and designers held a workshop with craftspeople in Ishinomaki, and designed unique pieces under the theme of Ishinomaki Home Base. The results of the workshop will be presented in the form an exhibition of furnitures and products under the title "7 designers, 2 days at Ishinomaki Laboratory".

Three tables, explored by three designers, Shinnosuke Harada/ Junichi Ishigaki/ Ryo Suzuki, are exhibited under the theme of an easily portable "ibasho".

Konel. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Studio POETIC CURIOSITY. Image by Mina Asaba, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Remarkable Collective Exhibition Offers Encounters with Artworks and Excitement

ITOCHU - SDGs STUDIO 

Regeneration and circulation

ITOCHU SDGs STUDIO will serve as a space which various NGOs, NPOs and other organizations involved with the SDGs can use to communicate information about their activities and as a space where individuals have the opportunity to engage with the SDGs in their own way, allowing various plans to unfurl and take shape.

This time, the artworks of three creators will be exhibited which are born from the concept of "Regeneration and circulation".

Konel will exhibit clogs made from discarded clothing.

In addition, with the theme of “regenerating touch and feel,” Studio POETIC CURIOSITY will showcase “Fabric Record,” a phonograph record made from used and discarded textiles to enjoy sounds made from fabric.

Sohma Furutate / MASS -2022. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Nina Nomura / Life Through Holes. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Hibiya Okuroji - Diverse works, from interior goods to cutting-edge art, under the 100-year-old viaduct

Participating creators include Takaya Mic Mitsunaga, Nina Nomura, Sohma Furutate, nooca, Maruhei Timber × tossanaigh.

Hibiya Okuroji is located between Hibiya and Ginza, where the impressive brick bridge arches are still in use after more than 100 years. The 300-meter-long space will host a variety of artworks, from interior design to works by cutting-edge artists.

In a large space of approximately 130 square meters, the Berlin Wall online project, organized by Designart Tokyo’s UNDER 30 artist Takaya Mic Mitsunaga, will appear under the title BERLIN WALL TOKYO. 

Another artist, Nina Nomura, will exhibit Life Through Holes, a work that questions the true richness of the relationship between objects and people by filling the surface of objects with tiny holes. 

Sohma Furutate, will exhibit the interior elements "MASS -2022-", seems to have an irregular appearance, but the forms that emerge by capturing all the elements of surface transitions , depth and shading are a more "human" way of seeing things as a sensual perspective.

Planted Air. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Perrier-Jouët & Garance Vallée - “Planted Air,” a collaboration artwork, will be exhibited in Japan ahead of the world

Perrier-Jouët, the French prestige Champagne house, releases the world premiere in Japan of a collaborative artwork, “Planted Air,” created for Perrier-Jouët with French artist, architect, and designer Garance Vallée.

This work expresses the dialogue between the two pillars that support the Maison Perrier-Jouët: art and nature. Reinterpreting the ecology of the Perrier-Jouët vineyard, the work's extensive use of curves and arabesques represents Art Nouveau from a contemporary perspective. 

The materials chosen are unique and artisanal, and the solid, hand-carved limestone blocks evoke the terroir of Champagne. The wrought iron, which was painstakingly forged by craftsmen, is reminiscent of the main gate of the Maison Belle Epoque in Epernay.

Mirror in the rough. Photo by Naomi Circus, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

SANLORENZO JAPAN meets Kazuto Imura

Pre-launch of SANLORENZO JAPAN, the world’s leading Italian yacht brand by internationally renowned designers including Piero Lissoni

Coinciding with the pre-launch of SANLORENZO JAPAN, artist Kazuto Imura’s solo exhibition “Æ/æ” will be held at MA5 GALLERY, which will serve as a platform for SANLORENZO JAPAN’s Art & Design. 

For the first exhibition there, Imura has created mirrors that “do not reflect yourself.” Through examining materials and techniques that have been used in mirror production, he relives the history of the human-mirror association. 

The title “Æ/æ” was inspired by the technique he used with a focus on the mirror construction, where he superimposes the phenomenon caused by the materials’ composite nature during the mirror-making process onto a reflected image. Please enjoy this fantastic space formed by mirrors.

teamLab. Continuous Life and Death at the Now of Eternity. Image © teamLab, courtesy of Designart Tokyo

teamLab, Continuous Life and Death at the Now of Eternity at VOLVO STUDIO AOYAMA

Volvo Studio Aoyama will display Continuous Life and Death at the Now of Eternity by the art collective teamLab. 

This will be exhibited in conjunction with another art exhibition by teamLab and sponsored by Volvo Car Japan, VOLVO teamLab: A Forest Where Gods Live. It is held at Mifuneyama Rakuen in Kyushu, where the vast forest, megaliths, caves, and other natural features of Mt. Mifuneyama, become art in themselves.

Prada - “Who the Bær”. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

A space where fashion and art blend with each other

Prada presents the exhibition “Who the Bær”

Prada presents the exhibition “ Who the Bær ” by Simon Fujiwara, organized with the support of Fondazione Prada, at Prada Aoyama. “Who the Bær” is a cartoon character created by the artist that takes inspiration from fairy tales, fantasy literature, animation and the exhibition explores a plurality of topics belonging to different realms: from the climate collapse to cultural appropriation, from plastic surgery to Pop-art through the coming-of-age story of ''Who the Bær".

Left: Photo: Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Right: courtesy of the artist. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

“Visitors" by Chrisitan Hidaka & Takeshi Murata

Christian Hidaka and Takeshi Murata will hold the co-exhibition Visitors at Maison Hermes Forum in Ginza. Through the worlds of these two artists, who continue to create works that interrogate the space between reality and fiction, the exhibition will highlight the fictional structure seen in contemporary art through two narratives.

Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Ayame Ono at Perverze The Embodiment Store 

Established in Tokyo in 2016 by an anonymous collective of young creatives, Perverze is both a fashion brand and a project, will have a collaborative exhibition with artist Ayame Ono at Perverze The Embodiment Store, which opened in March 2022. 

While utilizing the structure of the store, this exhibition will incorporate Perverze's archive of textile patterns and materials created up until now, forming a collage of works where various layers intersect.

Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Experience of Technology x Art

Metaverse Boundary

The metaverse, such as digital twins, is a recent hot topic. What would people do if a metaverse city is shrouded in darkness? What is it like if a mirror exists physically at the boundary of the virtual and real?.

This is an experimental artwork by ExMetaClub x TV Asahi, which considers the viewer’s (avatar’s) experience and behavior in the metaverse space itself as the artwork. “The gorgeous and light-filled METAVERSE ROPPONGI” will be turned into the “Black METAVERSE ROPPONGI” for a limited time. This interactive artwork is simultaneously exhibited physically and virtually. *The exhibit will tour different locations.

FOCUS, the lighting pieces designed by Yuji Okitsu. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Ariake. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

PATIO PETITE at GINZA innit. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Interior

New collections and presentations by interior brands

The lighting piece FOCUS, designed by Yuji Okitsu and commercialized by the French lighting brand DCW éditions Paris, will be exhibited in the Tokyo showroom of the Royal Furniture Collection.

In the second image above, Ariake, a furniture brand founded by Legnatec and Hirata Chair, two factories from the furniture producing town of Morodomi in Saga prefecture, will present its new collection for 2022 in collaboration with LE KLINT, Bang & Olufsen and BELAIR LAB.

The third image represents a special outdoor furniture exhibition of PATIO PETITE, which will be held at “upstairs outdoor living,” a lifestyle store on the 2nd floor of “GINZA innit” run by Sugita Ace.

emergence by Osamu Yokoyama (2022). Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

OMOTESANDO REPLICA. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Art

Enjoy art in the city in autumn, from interactive installations to established galleries

A Lighthouse called Kanata, a contemporary art gallery that introduces Japanese artists to the world, is bringing together works by up-and-coming artists in The Future Eternal exhibition. Rather than following the transient trends of contemporary art, the highlight of the exhibition is the universal yet progressive abstract works that connect the past and the future.

The exhibition will feature ambitious three-dimensional and two-dimensional works that combine materials and outstanding techniques to embellish contemporary spaces.

series - sea/ ambi & Studio Relight. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

FLOW”- Fluid material cycle- by Daisuke Yamamato. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo

Tokyo Midtown will exhibit works of two creator groups featuring “Design for Sustainable Future”

series-sea / ambi & Studio Relight

The series sea is an effort by ambi to realize the charm of Studio Relight's activities through design, using recycled glass from waste fluorescent lamps that have been properly processed by Studio Relight's parent company, Sawaya Co.

FLOW”- Fluid material cycle- by Daisuke Yamamato

This project began with the awareness that everyday recyclable construction materials are disposed then new construction begins, so-called “scrap and build”. In this situation, he shed light on the most used and at the same time disposed material, LGS ( Lightweight Gauge Steel).

This product series “FLOW” came to life from this process, challenging in realizing fluid material cycle that prevents any kind of industrial waste disposal.

Image design by/© Ikki Kobayashi for Designart Tokyo

Designart Tokyo Exhibition facts

Event Period: October 21st (Fri) ~ October 30th (Sun) Press day: October 21st (Fri) 

Area: OMOTESANDO / GAIENMAE / SHIBUYA / HARAJUKU / ROPPONGI HIROO / GINZA

Organizer: Designart Tokyo Committee

Number of exhibits: 92

Number of participating creators & brands: Approximately 300

The founders of Designart: Akio Aoki (MIRU DESIGN), Shun Kawakami (artless Inc.), Hiroshi Koike (NON-GRID), Okisato Nagata (TIMELESS), Astrid Klein & Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham Architecture).

Top image: Nina Nomura / Life Through Holes. Image courtesy of Designart Tokyo. 

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