Renowned digital and experiential art collective teamLab recently announced its plans to take over Japan’s historic Kairakuen Garden as part of a large-scale outdoor art project. The garden and its 3,000 plum blossom trees will be transformed into an interactive art space that responds to the presence of visitors.
Kairakuen Garden was created at the end of the Edo Period (1842) as a garden centered around a pond and was designated as a Special Place of Scenic Beauty. It is considered to be one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan alongside Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa and Korakuen Garden in Okayama. Kairakuen Garden is home to 3,000 plum trees of around 100 varieties, and it is well known for its plum blossoms. Because of this wide variety of trees, the plum blossoms bloom over a longer period of time.
teamLab’s art project Digitized Nature explores how nature can become art. The concept of the project is that non-material digital technology can turn nature into art without harming it.
Humans cannot recognize time longer than their own lifespans. In other words, there is a boundary in our understanding of the long continuity of time.
The forms and shapes of nature have been created over many years and have been molded by the interactions between people and nature. We can perceive this long duration of time in these shapes of nature themselves. By using the shapes, we believe we can explore the boundary in our perception of the long continuity of time.
“teamLab: Digitized Kairakuen Garden” will run from February 13 to March 21, 2021, in Mito, Ibaraki. Visit teamLab’s website to learn more about the outdoor installations.
