JIRINPAHiragana, Rinpa, onomatopoeia
The first exhibition of the Shibuya Higashi Archives — and its permanent one.
Permanent Exhibition
Enter the shapes of Japanese;
touch the presence of its sounds.
Jirinpa is an exhibition that recomposes the ornament of the Rinpa school, the plastic form of hiragana, and the bodily sense of Japanese onomatopoeia into a single space for viewing.
The venue is a jet-black three-dimensional space. Around the visitor standing at its center, Rinpa screen paintings line the inner wall of a cylinder without a single seam, and slowly revolve.
Circling counter to the screens, forty-eight hiragana quietly make their rounds. When the visitor touches one, that character becomes the protagonist and approaches from the depths of the space, slowly turning.
The moment the character comes to rest before the visitor, the onomatopoeia that begin with it appear all at once from within the screens. Touch one as it floats by, and its meaning and usage appear in a small balloon.
Highlights
Highlights
01
Rinpa becomes a space
The screen paintings are recomposed as the very walls that surround the visitor, even as they remain objects of contemplation.
02
Hiragana take the leading role
The forty-eight characters appear not as signs to be read, but as beings with shape and velocity.
03
Onomatopoeia leap out
Words are displayed not only as meanings, but as things possessed of sound, motion, and texture.
04
Gazing at Japanese
Reading; seeing; the feeling that one can almost hear. The exhibition moves quietly among the three.
Jirinpa is an exhibition for experiencing the presence of Japanese before it is an exhibition for learning the language.
Please touch the characters. Be advised, however, that a character once touched may remember you.