We started off the day bright and early. Leaving NYC at 9:30, we headed to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills. As we waited for the professors to purchase the tickets, several of us went to admire the view of Tokyo Tower from the nearby terrace. Afterwards, we headed up to the museum, which was on the 52nd floor!
The current exhibit at the Mori is themed around school and different class subjects. Each room is themed around a school subject and the pieces displayed in each room are meant to reflect and embody that overarching theme. There were a variety of pieces displayed throughout. Photographs and paintings. Video and audio displays. Sculpture, porcelain, and even entire rooms meant to be walked through and engaged with.
In the first room, embodying language and literature, there were a series of photographs by Yoneda Tomoko from their “Between the Visible and Invisible” series. The series is a collection of images taken through the lenses of glasses worn by famous figures in history gazing onto their own work. It places the audience directly in the shoes of those figures, quite literally seeing what they saw. Another work that stood out was Kazama Sachiko’s “Prison NUKE FISSION 235”. Kazaa Sachiko was an artists whose work we had seen featured just the day before in the ANPO documentary. It was powerful to see the large scale and detail of their work in person. At least for me personally, I felt that it enhanced my understanding of what was discussed in ANPO.
Leaving the museum we had a couple hours of free time before we would meet up with Sophia University students in Shibuya for a walking tour. I personally didn’t do anything interesting in this time beside a delicious lunch at the L’Occitane cafe and a quick Don Quijote run for some sunscreen. Meeting up next to the Hachiko statue by Shibuya Crossing, we began our walking tour of Shibuya. We were originally supposed to go to four locations, but only made it to three due to time constraints.
We started by heading to the clubbing district in Shibuya, were we learned about what the night life was like, the demographics of this particular district(aimed primarily towards young people and favors women), and how urban planning and design helped to facilitate an easy, entry level clubbing scene for the youth of Shibuya. We finished up the tour by going to two parks Kitaya Park and Miyashita Park. Here we learned about the rapid urbanization and modernization of central Tokyo, often at the expense of free public spaces and safe spots for the homeless population. Kitaya Park had been remodeled to have no grass, limited seating, and was mostly a coffee shop rather than a park. Miyashita Park was remodeled in preparation for the Olympics to be on the top floor of a building with limited hours, rather than the freestanding park it once was. The grass was roped off with do not enter signs. All of the facilities cost money, you couldn’t just use the skatepark, the ticket booth had to be open and you had to buy a ticket. There weren’t even public trash cans.
The remodeling of Miyashita Park spawned many protests from local residents. It made me think back a little to ANPO, where western presence and ideals were prioritized over local residents thoughts and protests. American military presence int ANPO’s case and the wish to appear more ‘modern’ for the wave of foreigners arriving for the Olympics in Miyashita Park’s case. We ended the day by walking over to the mall above Shibuya station to see Taro Okamoto’s mural “Myth of Tomorrow” and reflect on its history as well as its depiction of the nuclear bombings in Japan. Overall a very full and interesting day filled with so many things to reflect back on.
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