Yokohama Triennale 2017
Islands, Constellations and Galapagos
Dates: 4 August – 5 November 2017
Yokohama Triennale 2017 is pleased to announce the exhibition title of Yokohama Triennale 2017, “Islands, Constellations and Galapagos.” The title, together with the concept, has been conceived as a result of a series of discussion by the Conception Meeting members, consisting of the directors and experts of different generations working in different fields.
“Islands,” “constellations,” and “Galapagos,” are words that open possibilities for us to discuss various issues such as isolation and connectivity, imagination and guidance, distinctness and diversity, among others. In contemplating what we shall consider wisdom for our future during this time of uncertainty, we hope to engage people in these discussions using our imagination and creativity.
In addition to the exhibition, a series of public forums “Yokohama Round” will be kicked off in January 2017 as a platform for conversations/discussions, contemplation, as well as sharing/co-existence in exploring the ideas surrounding the title of Yokohama Triennale 2017.
Today, even as the global network broadly expands beyond the existing framework, the world is being rocked by conflicts and disputes, refugee and immigrant issues, and the United Kingdom’ so-called Brexit from the EU, among other things. In addition, in the environment inundated with the amount of information far beyond human processing capacity and highly and increasingly complex, rapid development of social network has caused our society to progressively resemble island universes and, furthermore, the activities of various small-scale collectives that seem to resist the logic of world powers or centralized governments are accelerating.
With such a landscape as its backdrop, Yokohama Triennale 2017 , under the title “Islands, Constellations and
Galapagos” will reexamine the state of global connectivity and isolation f rom various angles. The exhibition will potentially consider, among other things, the following: the archipelago-style existence of regions and cultural spheres; the world that is generally growing conservative; distinctive evolutions and diversifications that happen within the closed environments; and what kinds of potentials human imagination and creativity may manage to cultivate, faced with the world in which such conflicting concepts and aspects intricately and fluidly intertwine.
Today, at this turning point of an era, Yokohama Triennale 2017 aims to capture anew the complexity, profundity, and nexus of the world that cannot be grasped merely through a digital perspective (the worldview consisting of 0 and 1). With the courage of ancient sailors who sailed the open seas with stars as their guideposts and with human imagination that painted mythological images and wove narratives in the sky by connecting the stars, we hope to recapture them from multifaceted perspectives. The triennale intends, then, to provide the place where, together with a diverse range of people, we contemplate what we shall consider wisdom for our future.