“BankART Life” is a series of large-scale exhibitions presented by BankART1929 in conjunction with the Yokohama Triennale. The exhibition series is a comprehensive three-year survey and guideline for the forthcoming years’ activities. The seventh iteration of “BankART Life” coincides with the 20th anniversary of BankART’s founding and will be titled “UrbanNesting: Reinhabiting the City.”
In 2004, BankART1929 launched as the leading project of the Creative City Projects promoted by the City of Yokohama. BankART1929 has carried out various projects reactivating the city, within and beyond, by transforming idle facilities such as historical buildings and port warehouses into cultural and artistic venues. BankART itself has faced various challenges of urban transformation and has relocated in response to these changes while continuing to pursue its activities. The phrase “inhabiting the city” has since been used on occasion to describe BankART’s presence in the city. Yet, “inhabit” implies a sense of animalism that transcends the meaning of simply living in the city. It is the joy of gazing at the city with a wild eye to seek, discover, and reclaim a place of one’s own. In the same vein, while diligently addressing these challenges that loom within the city, we accept its uncertainties, change form at will, and persist in living in the city. Just as there are days of sunshine for the birds and insects to play in, there are days when they huddle together in their nests to endure the wind and rain, and the fresh air washed away by the rain after the storm will radically change the city’s appearance.
To contemplate something as elusive and massive as a “city,” the actual graspable sense of a city by anyone is limited, similar to any living creature’s relation to its circumstantial world. Yet, what happens upon its unique view is only a part of the whole picture. Alternatively, it is possible to generate a map of a city visible only to yourself and pass it on to another resident of the same city, who may then use it to navigate and re-experience as if it were a different city. How will the city resurface after these interchanges of miscellaneous maps, renewing and recreating each other?
BankART Station, the venue for this year’s exhibition, is a massive space on the first basement floor of Shin-Takashima Station on the Minatomirai Line. “BankART Station” will also serve as a node connecting to external exhibition spaces. Based out of BankART Station, artworks will be exhibited in the everyday spaces of three districts: Minatomirai 21, Kannai, and Yokohama Portside Area. Specialized tours will be offered by a selected list of guides, enabling participants to revisit the city from diversified points of view.
