Architects Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow and artist Rirkrit Tiravanija will discuss recent projects and share views on life, art, and architecture.

Atelier Bow-Wow is a Tokyo-based firm founded in 1992 by Kaijima and Tsukamoto. Based on the concept of “architectural behaviorology,” the practice investigates the behavior of environmental elements—air, light, heat, wind, and water—as well as that of humans and buildings in order to optimize their performance.

Recent projects include:

• Canal Swimmer’s Club, a multifunctional public space for meeting, relaxing, sunbathing, and swimming in the canals of Bruges, Belgium.
• Satoyama Nagaya Hoshinogawa, collective housing in the rural community of Yame in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. 
• Kurimoto Daiichi Firewood Supply Station, a project addressing social and ecological restoration in a region near Tokyo affected by the decline of the timber industry. 

Kaijima graduated from Japan Women’s University and completed postgraduate studies at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Tsukamoto studied architecture at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Contemporary artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who splits his time between New York, Berlin, and Chiang Mai, Thailand, is known for his “relational” artistic practice aligning social engagement as art.

Recent works include:

• untitled 2015 (do we dream under the same sky), an outdoor shelter that invited visitors to eat, relax, and engage in conversation. 
• untitled 2018 (the infinite dimensions of smallness), a site-specific bamboo maze with a tea house in its center.
• (who’s afraid of red, yellow, and green), an exhibition that transformed the Hirshhorn Museum galleries into a communal dining space.

Tiravanija studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Banff Center School of Fine Arts, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Whitney Independent Studies Program in New York.

The discussion will be followed by a reception and an opportunity to visit the exhibition Made in Tokyo: Architecture and Living, 1964/2020 at Japan Society (October 11, 2019–January 26, 2020), curated and designed by Atelier Bow-Wow.

Support

This event is co-organized by Japan Society.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.