2024 Laboratory of Forest Art, pre-show events

 

This year 2024, the Laboratory of Forest Art will be held during September 29 – October 20 in the same forest of the previous years (; my adventure for 2023 Show can be checked here). Currently the artists are busy creating their presentations in the forest. If you’re interested in the process, you can visit the forest next to Yokohama Zoorasia, and chat with the artists. Since there is no parking, a recommended access to the Forest is by bus. The most convenient transportation is a bus ride to Yokohama Zoorasia, from JR Nakayama 中山 Station, Sotetsu Tsurugamine 鶴ヶ峰 Station, or Sotetsu Mitsukyo 三ツ境 Station. (Timetables are here.) Get off the bus at the North Gate of Zoorasia that is the closest to the art exhibition entrance. When you leave the terminal stop of Zoorasia North Gate, go back a bit along the bus road, and on your left is the sign for the GROUP. From there enter the forest. The road is a relatively wide walking promenade. Soon you can see a big banner over there saying “the Creation and Voice of the Woods 創造と森の声.”

In addition to the open production of installation, they have several programs this year for art lovers to enjoy forest with the artists. Last March, they received the 11th Yokohama Hito Machi Design Award (“Yokohama People-Town Design Award”) for their contributions connecting city forest and locals, especially kids, through sharing art-creation process. The honour is given once in two years to citizen groups who contributed making Yokohama more comfortable to visit and live. Their schedule for 2024 is to forward their activities to more people. You can check their Facebook page to know the calendar. Anyway, this week I tell you their plan for this fall as long as I know.

The dancing towermen are now like this.

One program is annual weekend Forest Marche from 10:00, 21 September – 14 October, in the entrance space of the forest of their art venue. For fund-raising, every weekend during the period they sell second-hand artbooks and small souvenir-sized artworks of the artists and distribute reports of previous years’ activities. If you’re interested in having small art on your desk by the artists of the Forest Labo, it’s a good place to explore. Another event in the Forest for the art show is by Akina Chikada on October 12 from 10:00, which is specifically programmed for school kids. They plan to walk in the Group‘s forest to find whatever interesting and with these treasures decorate a pergola made of Chinese evergreen oak thinned this spring.

The pergola is already standing.

The Group also collaborates with Satoyama Garden Festa, 14 September – 14 October, and holds 3 workshops from 10:00 at their tent situated in the open space for the Main Entrance area. All workshops ask for a donation of 500 yen for the const of materials et al. The first one is on September 22 titled “Making mushrooms from woods.” It’s a wordplay of homophones. In Japanese mushrooms are “Kinoko” whose sound can be written in Chinese characters as “Kids of woods 木の子” and so is the name of the workshop. Artists will help you make “Kinoko” from wood brought from the Forest after the artists did forest maintenance works. The second workshop is on September 28 led by Yoichiro Yoshikawa. He helps us to make a doll from wood chips harvested in the Forest. The last one is on October 6th with Komayuki to construct wood-stand, again using the materials from their Forest. I think they can accept drop-in to join the fun, but it would be kinder to let them know your coming beforehand. Thier contact email is here.

On the opening and closing days for the show, there is an art tour led by artists, starting at 11:00 from the open space of the entrance. After the tour, they will have a chat show from 13:00. The artists will talk and answer the questions from the audience about creation of art in forest. Before 13:00, it‘s a lunch time. You can bring your lunch, or make a reservation for purchasing lunch box via email. It‘ll be fun weekends in the Forest enjoying art. If you have a chance, please join.

When you find a problem in the site introduced in this post, the best contact address will be GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods.

https://morilab.amebaownd.com/
e-mail: morinokoe7@yahoo.co.jp

The city office which is in charge of this forest is

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016 

FAX: 045-316-8420