KYOEN in pictures

Over three weeks this winter season, Kyoto Journal, with the help of some wonderful sponsors (Kyoto City Tourism Association 京都市観光協会, SunM Color サンエムカラー, Shoyeido Incense 松栄堂, Shimaya Stays シマ屋, Kyoto Distillery and Alishan Organics) and the Terminal Kyoto, was able to bring together the work of 25 artists in what was a rather unusual but…

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Ima Tenko: Butoh dancer

Ima Tenko believes that transforming butoh performance from a big-budget spectacular, as it was with Byakkosha, into the intimate encounter she performs today is much more sustainable.

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Minako Hiromi Exhibition at The Terminal Kyoto

Minako Hiromi’s new exhibition “An every-day life of reminiscence” (11.2–12.1, 2019) showcases her mesmerizing mandalas, each of which invite the viewer to explore the hidden stories in their stunning, hand-drawn detail.

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Somushi: The Story of Kyoto’s First Korean Teahouse

“I wanted to create a space where people could have their senses stimulated by using natural material all around. At the start, I purposely didn’t put up signs for the restrooms, nor did we have a menu. I wanted people to use their instincts and figure stuff out — to think before immediately asking for what they wanted.”

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Inspired by Japan

A look at the work of foreign artists inspired by Japan: Denis Guidone, Elaine Cooper, Alessandro Bellegarde, David Stanley Hewitt and Deborah Davidson.

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Kyoto Women Entrepreneurs: Kumakura Seiko

Kumakura Seiko first worked in theatre to increase awareness of societal issues in an appealing way. As an activist and a mother she has since used her experience to launch trailblazing community projects in Kyoto.

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Lemon

An impenetrable curse lay heavy on my heart. Call it an uneasiness, call it ill humors—like a hangover after drinking, you drink every day and there comes a time when it all might as well be a hangover. Well, that time had come.

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Kyoto’s Festivals: Twelve Months of Everyday Transience

In Kyoto, one grows accustomed to the ongoing round of festivals at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines—it’s said that you could attend at least one every day here, throughout the year. But the word ‘festival’ doesn’t quite capture the spirit of the majority of these events. With some notably lively exceptions, they are mostly rather formal annual cere­monies and rituals…

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Artists’ Fair Kyoto

For its second year, AFK has proved itself worthy of being a highlight of Kyoto’s artistic calendar, bringing the energy of Kyoto’s local and international community together.

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The Vanishing Radish

As a farmer, it may seem commonplace that varieties of vegetables do not exist forever, but are in constant competition with each other for survival on our dinner plates, and that the development of modern agriculture and inter-regional (and now international) trade in produce have greatly accelerated this process.

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Setsubun

Their faces twisted in a permanent grimace. With scimitar­ like tusks and beady eyes that darted from face to face, the Oni advanced slowly into the crowd. Two bony horns protruded from their manes of coarse, filthy hair, and each had a different shade of scaly skin – one red, one yellow, and the last blue…

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Rocking to the Flow

The 7th generation Ogawa Jihei (1860-1933), better known as “Ueji,” was a magician with water and stone and a pioneer of modern Japanese garden design.

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Kyoto in the Mid-sixties

Waiting in the snow at the Ryoan-ji bus stop on a Kyoto winter morning in 1964, I was interrupted by a woman who came out of a nearby house and, seeing me standing there, went back inside and returned with an overcoat which she helped me into. It was a three-quarter-length brown coat, and warm…That was my introduction to Kyoto.

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Shokunin and Devotion

The Japanese word ‘shokunin’ is often translated as ‘artisan’ in English. Although it isn’t incorrect by definition, the translation seems to lose the spirit of what a shokunin does. I’m reminded of this every time I explain the works and lives of shokunin to an overseas audience, which happens to be what I do for a living.

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