Takashi Niimi, known as a genius in the art world who has created notable exhibitions at numerous art museums, is one of the people who are envisioning the future of Art Biotope Nasu, along with Hitomi Kitayama and her mother and son Minoru. He also directs the mountain schule, which he holds every year. He writes about Niimi's vision of the future of resorts and the appeal of Art Biotope Nasu.

Written by Takashi Niimi

What does “diaspora” mean?

The present age is truly a melting pot of ``diversification,'' with a highly diverse mix of things. Moreover, natural disasters and disasters occur one after another, and the negative effects of global warming are close to our physical senses. As the Swedish girl Greta Thunberg tearfully complained at the United Nations, ``If you continue to leave the deterioration of the global environment unto the next generation, I will never forgive you.'' Her courageous attitude of realizing the suffering of the earth itself as a form of life is moving the world.

Ask art students in class, "What does it mean to be Japanese?" On the other hand, the question ``What is your tribe?'' They think carefully about their own problems and come up with words that are close to the correct answer. According to him, ``all the people who currently live in Japan, which has been defined in some way politically and legally,'' or ``people who will think of this place as their hometown a hundred years from now.''

The correct answer to the second question is that ``Mongoloids'' (in anthropological terms, babies with blue butts) traveled from around Tibet to Siberia, crossed the Bering Strait for hundreds of years, became Eskimos in Canada, and became American Eskimos. Then we become Indians, and we are part of the so-called ``Mongoloid band'' from the Mayans to the Incas, spanning thousands of years.

Recently, in Oita, I had a conversation with Satoko Kawano, a poet from Takeda. Her latest collection of songs includes ``Glass Island.'' This is a collection of poems full of deep insights and cries that question the delusions of modern Japan after 11. While talking, she and I both said that all humans since modern times, no matter which country they belong to, are not only those who actually left their homeland due to war, poverty, or persecution, but also those who have lost their homeland. I had a real feeling that they were part of the diaspora, and I empathized with them.

Isamu Noguchi travels back and forth between Japan and the United States, aiming to create futuristic art for the five senses and garden sculptures that people of all ages can meet. Wasn't he looking at that garden with a sort of sad gaze, as if he were looking at it from some other planet, outside of Earth, but with a strong gaze that seemed to overcome despair? If this is one indication of how we can overcome the diaspora in the future, then perhaps future human solidarity will be a community of empathy through the five senses that transcends national and racial boundaries. ?

Creating a new resort with the aim of creating a “community of the five senses”

Over ten years ago, my sister Hitomi Kitayama, mother and daughter Miyu, and I talked about starting a small art village on the banks of the Yokozawa mountain stream, where Nasu's clear nature still remains. Ta. Art Biotope Nasu is a non-profit cultural community.

It is a pioneering experiment in a cultural resort, a workshop-like resort that is open to everyone and offers a stay in a new natural environment, with a pottery and glass workshop attached. Numerous young artists have developed and spread their wings through the artist-in-residence programs, and the summer open school ``Mountain Schule'', which is open to the public, attracts many men and women of all ages.

The Water Garden, a ground-breaking, futuristic experience museum that uses nature as its material, was also created by Junya Ishigami, a uniquely talented architect. Next summer, Shigeru Ban's cottages and restaurant building will also open, and the future version of the legendary ``Niki Resort'' will once again appear in Nasu.

These ideological sources include the artists' villages of modern Europe, which were a great counter-cultural movement to reconnect the human body with nature, which had been separated by urbanization and mechanization. There was a group of artist colonies. A typical example of this is Ascona, which was born on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. It was originally a forest bathing sanatorium for tuberculosis treatment, and it was there that the original Pippies of the turn of the century entered. Nudism, vegetarianism, modern dance experiments, etc. 20th century revolutionaries such as dancer Isadora Duncan, mystical thinker Rudolf Steiner, who aimed for human revolution, and poet Hermann Hesse gathered together. (Note XNUMX)

I believe that the budding seeds of this movement are now reaching the 1960st century via the counterculture wave of the 21s, which was the great postwar counterculture movement.

(Note 1)
I studied and borrowed from the catalog of the "Ascona" exhibition planned by the late Harold Szeeman, as well as Martin Green's masterpiece "Mountain of Truth: Ascona Countercultural Chronicle" (Kokusho Kankokai, translated by Hideki Shindo, 1998). .

→Next time is Takahiro Kondo (ceramist).

(Titles omitted)