At the Meiji Jingu shrine in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, visitors can enjoy not only the works of artists who have been attracting worldwide attention, but beautiful flowers from across the country as well during the Meiji Jingu Forest Festival of Art, which opened Friday. The festival is part of the Japan Cultural Expo, or Nihonhaku, where various art exhibitions and symposiums will be held until the end of March next year to introduce Japanese nature and culture to visitors from both Japan and abroad.
The festival's theme is "'Celebrate, Pray, Create' -- sustainable nature, art and culture --" and it is linked with the 100-year anniversary project of Meiji Jingu. In the forest at the inner garden of the shrine, an outdoor sculpture exhibition has also begun. In this exhibition, the works of four artists are on display including sculptor Kohei Nawa, creator of "White Deer," a huge deer sculpture on display in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, and a contemporary artist Misa Funai.
Nawa's piece, like the one in Ishinomaki, is a roughly 3-meter tall deer-shaped objet d'art looking up at the sky. "It is connected to the piece in Ishinomaki, and is filled with my positive and refreshing feelings," Nawa said. A company employee from Hong Kong, who was taking the photo of the sculpture, said, "It's mysterious and matches the atmosphere of the shrine forest very well."
Near the Sanshuden, there is also the Thanks Flower Project where flowers from all over the country are displayed. Decorated with about 400 branches of cherry trees grown in the six prefectures of the Tohoku region, two 6-meter-high cherry trees brought from Fukushima Prefecture are expected to be in full bloom.
Some of the events have been canceled or postponed to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. For more information, visit the official website https://jingu-artfest.jp/
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