EXHIBITIONS

Daiba is an artificial island built in the late Edo period (1603–1868) as a coastal battery intended to repel ships demanding that Japan open its ports to trade, yet it ultimately marked the country's opening to the world without a single shot being fired. The former battery site, now a park, is a space where remnants of the fortifications are scattered among grass and shrubs, creating an environment in which nature and history coexist in close proximity. Meanwhile, the adjoining Odaiba Marine Park features a human-made beach and presents a broad, open landscape oriented toward the sea, with a sense of scale and movement that contrasts with Daiba Park.

In these areas, works that make use of the surrounding environment will be installed, including Kusama Yayoi's Narcissus Garden (1966/2026), Zhao Yao's Something in the Air (2019), and a sound installation by Ishige Kenta. As visitors move through the site, stopping, lingering, and occasionally turning back, they will experience relationships between the works and the site that differ from those of museums or conventional venues. Such moments will also offer an opportunity to rediscover the appeal of Tokyo itself.

In the atrium at the heart of this building, a landmark in the Aomi area with a commanding presence, two balloon works by Kusama Yayoi will be exhibited: Yayoi-chan (2012/2023) and, for the first time in Japan, A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe (2021). This marks the first-ever presentation of this combination of works. Yayoi-chan represents an 'inner universe,' appearing as an avatar of the artist herself, while A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe gives form to an 'outer universe' in which life and love expand without limit. Their meeting creates a setting where inner and outer, the individual and the cosmos, are in dialogue.

The soft balloon material resonates with the solidity of the architecture, enveloping the entire atrium in a celebratory atmosphere. As visitors move between upper and lower levels, they can experience the works from multiple viewpoints, and the space, changing in character between day and night, will deliver the powerful impression of a fantastical universe created by Kusama Yayoi.

This facility was once the city's garbage collection site. Through redevelopment, the surrounding waterfront plazas and promenades have been improved, and the area has been reborn as an urban space that carries traces of its past. In this setting, where built structures, open water, remnants of earlier uses coexist, works planned for display include a video installation by Sasaoka Yuriko, and the exhibition will feature installation works by Mori Keita, along with other artworks.

Aomi Minami Port Park is located next to the Aomi Container Terminal, a customs-controlled port area lined with large cargo containers and gantry cranes. From the park, visitors can look out over the Port of Tokyo’s international maritime traffic, including views across the water toward the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal and Oi Pier. Planned projects include Abraham Poincheval’s performance La Bouteille (2015–), in which the artist lives inside a giant bottle to examine questions of privacy and public space, and Goat’s Eyes (2020–), a project led by Ozawa Tsuyoshi’s laboratory at Tokyo University of the Arts and collaborators that explores sustainable sites for artwork production, research, and creative activity through the practice of caring for goats. Set on the waterfront in the global city of Tokyo, the site is envisioned as a campsite or small village where dialogue among artists and participants, and coexistence not only among people but also with animals and plants, open space for thinking about alternative social practices and future forms of community.

Beneath Aomi Minami Port Park extends an underground space measuring 197.5 meters in total length. For this exhibition, this site — currently closed to public use — will be opened as a special venue. An exhibition is planned that offers a counterpoint to the projects above ground, building on the unique property of this immense, usually inaccessible space.