The 12 months of "Deutschland in Japan 2005/2006", stuffed with events related to art and culture, economics, science, sports and other things German, are nearing an end. Exchange years like this are being held among many advanced nations. Even though political and economical ideas do certainly play a background role, the principal goal is to deepen the friendship and mutual understanding between two countries through exchange. This year, by the way, Japan celebrated also the "Japan-Korea Friendship Year", "Dynamic Switzerland" and the "Japan-EU Year of People-to-People Exchanges", but supposedly due to a lack of publicity, the general public unfortunately knew little about these.

A female PR person at a cultural institution once joked, "You know, we're like spies in a way". That’s not necessarily a joke, but I think it’s actually very true. From language education down to all other publicity activities related to foreign cultures, quite obviously such communication and promotion is primarily for the benefit of one’s own country — even call it a sort of "cultural invasion" if you want. This however is a very welcome invasion, as it happens from a perspective of cultural relativism that respects diversity (although some nationalists might protest).

I'm sorry if I keep comparing things to food on this page, but this is again a problem that’s best explained on the example of food. In Tokyo and other major cities in advanced nations, food from all around the world is easily available, and the influence of various international ingredients on local eating habits sometimes results in the creation of delicious "fusion" dishes. It’s the same thing with intercultural exchange. There are of course cases of stereotyped dishes or cheap imitations, but it’s basically a nice phenomenon that hurts no-one. In the case of art- and culture-related activities, the foreign elements actually "come over" (different from all the restaurants and food stores around the world that can't do so), so even though the direct contact is only temporary, it has the positive effect that the results are seldom "cheap".

Furthermore, such custums as artist-in-residence programs, where individuals stay in the "invaded zone" and create things, or multinational collaborations, often produce works that reflect influences from the respective area’s people, climate and history. Here it’s not the local food that changes, but it’s the visiting cook who prepares his food differently according to the local circumstances. A lot of times, encounters of cooks from two different countries result in an intriguing mixture of similarities and dissimilarities beyond national differences.

One typical example would be the exchange that is documented in the current "Tokyo-Berlin/Berlin-Tokyo" exhibition at Mori Art Museum. The show that came traveling to Tokyo from Berlin highlights the subtle analogies of both cities' historical nature in spite of being located on opposite points on the globe, in works of art, architecture, design, topical photography and more. One of the associations between Germany and Japan happend through the Fluxus movement, and such displays as the video footage of a legendary performance the late Nam June Paik staged together with Joseph Beuys at Tokyo’s Sogetsu Hall in 1984 express the fundamental power of historical cities.

According to a staff member of Mori Art Museum, about 470 works were selected from several thousand proposed items for the exhibition. Much time was apparently spent on clearing the point that "things people want to see/show in Germany and Japan are different", but I would say that at least the Japanese part (the show in Tokyo) worked out well. Personally I was especially surprised to see for the first time one of Kishida Ryusei’s works that is totally different in its style from the famed "Portrait of Reiko". It’s a bit hard to find, but try and look for it anyway if you visit the exhibition.

Another quite interesting event that’s currently under way is Swedish-born German artist Jarg Geismar’s "Lost in Berlin / Lost in Tokyo" (at A.R.T., unrelated to the Mori Art Museum show). Geismar, who has lived in Berlin and New York for a long time and is now based in Tokyo, shows an installation made up of photographs and videos in which he expresses in concrete, symbolic images the sense of discomfort he experienced while living in big cities — Tokyo in particular. According to the artist, what characterizes Tokyo is the phenomenon of "non-communication". Whether this impression/diagnosis is correct or not I recommend to find out by yourself by experiencing the somewhat passively participatory visual installation, and the set-up that makes use of the venue’s spatial characteristic features. From the window next to the ground floor entrance, down to the exhibition space in the basement, careful attention is being paid to the visitor’s circulation. The long yet at some points cut red thread is pretty striking.

2006 marks the "Australia-Japan Year of Exchange". Due to a stupid cold I was able to catch only one day of the "Australia-Japan dance Exchange 2006" in Yokohama, but as far as I can judge from that, it was a very aspiring opening event. It’s always good to have collaborations between artists from two countries, such as the joint performance of Kuroda Ikuyo’s company "Batik" and the Australian "Dance North/Splinter Group".

By the way, I'm sending this text from Australia, where I was invited from the Australian government to do some research on the continent’s culture scene. Prior to my arrival in Melbourne, Yanaihara Mikuni + Takahashi Keisuke (Off Nibroll) and Jo Lloyd were showing a reportedly very well-received performance titled "Public=Un+Public" (2/18-19) at the studio of Chunky Move, who were visiting Japan as part of the aforementioned "dance Exchange". It was the same piece that was shown last year at Yokohama’s BankART1929, and that’s exactly the kind of "exchange" I'd like to see happening much more.

Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO