The Ballet of Shibmata Shinhsokai exhibition at Atelier 485 Shibamata June 2019

The “Ballet” of Shibamata Shinshōkai

Street observation in Shibamata


The Ballet of Shibamata Shinshōkai aims to look at how art, urban research, history and community can come together to collectively approach issues of urban life.


The starting point is the metaphor of a “ballet” that the writer Jane Jacobs used to describe the daily rhythms, flows and interactions of Hudson Street in New York where she lived  in the 1950s


The exhibition will begin with sketches of the buildings on Shinshōkai street where Gallery 485 is located.. Visitors are invited to contribute by adding information to the walls with the aim of building up an idea of the history, social life, infrastructure of the street and its place in Tokyo.  

Workshops and exhibition texts will present some approaches to understanding urban life by artists and thinkers and invite visitors to explore these ideas in the context of understanding Shinshōkai.

“バレー”柴又親商会

柴又におけるストリート観察


”バレー”柴又親商会の展示の目的は、いかにして芸術、都市研究、歴史そしてコミュニティーが一体となることによって都市の生活というものにどのようなアプローチをしているのかを観察することにあります。


ことの始まりはジェーン・ジェイコブスという作家が1950年代に彼女の住んでいたニューヨークのハドソン通りの日常のリズムや流れ、そして関わりあいを”バレー”という言葉を比喩として用いたのが始まりであります。


この展示会始まりはギャラリー４８５のある親商会の通りをスケッチすることから始まりました。観客自身がギャラリーの壁にざまざまな独自の情報をつけ加えていくことによってこの展示は成立していくのです。東京、柴又の歴史や生活や通りの役割そして商店街における存在意義というものを。


ワークショップと解説はアーティストらや観客たちによって理解されている現代の生活へのアプローチを示しているつもりです。そして展覧会へ訪れる人たちを現在の親商会への理解を深める世界へといざなうものだと確信しております。



Kids ART Studio

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I held a workshop for pre-school children at  KOMAGOME1-14cas during my exhibition there.  Tomoko Sekineruns Kids ART Studio every Wednesday above the gallery at Tokyo Studio or in the gallery with visiting artists when they are exhibiting. 

 We asked the children questions about the paintings such as where they thought the scenes were located, what time of day it was, what the season was and their reasons why they thought what they did.

 We then asked them to find paintings containing certain aspects such as actions, clothes, expressions and colours.

 We demonstrated how the children could draw their own evening view into a bus on black paper then make a window with clear plastic and a frame. We asked them to think carefully about the various aspects that we had looked at in my paintings such as actions and colours when creating their own picture.

 It was very interesting to hear the stories that some of the children told around the people in their drawings and also in my own paintings. Also very interesting to see which aspects of my paintings and their own experience they found significant. For example a young, very quiet girl spent her time blending a few colours together which I originally thought was unrelated to the paintings but she had used the same basic colour scheme as in my work and had obviously been looking closely.

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Ebisu Bunkasai children's art workshop

My first workshop. A step into the unknown; not knowing who would turn up or how the final painting would turn out.  Fortunately I had great support from Sachiko and Atsuko Shintani and Natsuko Funakoshi at all stages from planning, getting hold of materials and translating. 

As a local artist I had been asked to hold a workshop at the annual Ebisu Bunkasai (culture festival) The idea was to present some of my own paintings then work with the children to collaboratievly produce a large landscape painting of Ebisu. 

The workshop was aimed at elementary school age children. There was a reasonable turnout of children accompanied by parents and grandparents who were happy to join in. 

After a brief outline of the workshop plan and presentation of my work I elicited some features of the surrounding landscape by drawing pictures on the whiteboard. We then asked children and adults, in groups,  to draw small pictures of as many things that they could remember seeing on their way to the workshop that day. After a few minutes we collected the ideas together, writing ideas on the whiteboard. We explained that we would have to divide up the words between the groups to ensure that we could include everything in the final picture. We then asked groups to choose at least two words to draw until they were all taken. We outlined a few guides for the drawings such as using all of the space on the paper and avoiding too much time consuming detail then set everyone off drawing. We stopped everyone after about thirty minutes then started cutting out the pictures and glueing them onto the canvas. when all of the drawings had been stuck on we demonstrated that all of the blank canvas needed to be filled. There was some creative use of the rollers to paint roads and railway lines and a few embelisments to the sky such as a rainbow and UFU. 

I was pleased to see how the final image worked out.