By Margherita Cole on January 29, 2022

teamLab, “Autonomous Resonating Life and Resonating Giant Cedar Forest,” 2021, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

The exhibition will allow visitors to see the 180-year-old garden in a new light.

Through digital technology, artists can alter spaces in new and noninvasive ways. Art collective teamLab is opening a new digital exhibition at Kairakuen, one of Japan’s most beloved gardens, as it celebrates its 180th anniversary in 2022. From February 1 to the end of March, this historic park will be presented to visitors in a new, creative light.

Kairakuen is referred to as one of the “Three Great Gardens of Japan,” alongside Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa and Korakuen Garden in Okayama. Teamlab has installed several interactive digital works across the park’s extensive grounds, utilizing an 800-year-old giant tree, 1,500 plum trees, a bamboo grove, pine trees, azaleas, and even a fallen tree. These works transform natural sites—which have been around since the end of the Edo Period in 1842—through projections of light, moving illustrations, and sound.

“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,” teamLab explains. “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, “Enso in the Natural Spring,” Togyokusen, 2021, Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

More: Interactive Projections Transform Historic Japanese Garden