The "RINKO-KAKU [Tea Room] Project 2021" shall be held at the "tea room" (completed in the 17th year of Meiji (1884)) of "RINKO-KAKU" (a reception hall for the Meiji Emperor), which is a government-designated important cultural property in Maebashi City, Gunma.

　This project was started in 2019 as a project to promote a "small international art exhibition" in the field of international exchange, through the fusion of Japanese and European culture.

　By combining the works of foreign and Japanese artists, the aim is to discover the similarities, differences, and universality of these artists, and discover new values and perspectives. Another goal is communication through culture, and this shall be achieved by inviting the general public and guests to the four-day exhibition and making it a different event each year.

　The project is an attempt to create a new sense of beauty through the fusion of three elements: the highly tranquil classical Japanese cultural architecture of the teahouse; the Japanese and European contemporary art works; and the events in which people can participate held each year.

　In the 2019 and 2020 exhibitions, we proposed new forms of cultural exchange. This was achieved by holding a "contemporary art exhibition" in a classical Japanese teahouse filled with tranquility, as well as a "tea ceremony" and a "talk show" in which participating artists, the general public, and guest creators were able to interact with each other.

　The "RINKO-KAKU [Tea Room] Project 2021" marks the 3rd year of the project, and continuing on from 2020, and linked to the 150th anniversary of friendship between Japan and Hungary and with the cooperation of Pintér Gábor, a curator who is active in Hungary, it shall consist of four overseas artists and two Japanese artists. An additional main objective of the project is to re-examine the architectural and historical value of Maebashi's RINKO-KAKU, a national cultural asset, and to introduce people from a younger generation and foreign visitors to the cultural assets of Gunma. Moreover, we aim to fuse the exhibition with the effects of the "music" within the tearoom space, as a new development this year.

The sense of beauty found in the tea ceremony, which originally resides in the tea room, can also be described as a comprehensive art form. The RINKO-KAKU [Tea room] Project 2021 aims to create a comprehensive art form for the modern age by placing the three elements of "art", "architecture", and "music" on the same level. Further, in this situation where it is difficult for people to interact due to COVID-19, we will use this opportunity to explore the possibility of holding exhibitions in coexistence with the coronavirus and use these works to connect the world.

　We hope that you will visit the tea room area and experience the "works of art" created by the artists, the "contemporary music" played by the guest musicians, and the "tea room architecture" of RINKO-KAKU, and enjoy the unique aesthetic experience exposed by this fusion.

　This project is planned and managed by the artists Yuka Miyazaki and Shuhei Fukuda in the office of the RINKO-KAKU [Tea Room] Project.

RINKO-KAKU [Tea Room] Project 2021