Free things to do in Tokyo this week

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government No 1 Building in Shinjuku serves as the backdrop for a jaw-dropping and record-breaking projection mapping show. Covering an area of a whopping 13,905sqm, the after-dark spectacle has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest permanent display of its kind in the world. The nightly showcase features a range of visual wonders created by a mix of local and international artists. Some shows are inspired by Tokyo’s rich history, while others draw on themes like the lunar cycle.  Currently, on weeknights, you can catch striking visuals synchronised to ‘800’ and 'Zankyosanka' by hit Japanese pop singer and lyricist Aimer as well as ‘Pac-Man eats Tokyo’, ‘Lunar Cycle’, ‘Synergy’, ‘Tokyo Resonance’ and ‘Evolution’. On weekends, you can look forward to the aforementioned ‘Zankyosanka (Aimer)’, as well as ‘Godzilla: Attack on Tokyo’ and ‘TYO337’, a display featuring motifs of traditional Japanese performing arts such as Kabuki paired with electronic beats.  From March 20, Pokémon Trading Card Game ‘Tokyo Luminous Night’, a brand-new projection-mapping show featuring Pokémon cards on a massive scale, has been running on weekends and holidays from 6.30pm, 7.30pm and 9pm. Be sure to check the event website for more details. Shows take place every night at fifteen-minute intervals from 6pm (Mar from 6.30pm, 7pm from Apr, 7.30pm from May to Aug) to 9.45pm. For more details and to check the full programme of daily projection mapping shows,...

Dividing his time between Tokyo and New York, Kota Iguchi (b. 1984) has emerged as a leading figure redefining the relationship between graphic design, motion and immersive visual experience. As co-founder of the creative association CEKAI, he has developed a practice that moves fluidly between motion graphics, live-action film, spatial installations and large-scale digital environments. From the animated sports pictograms of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to projects for Las Vegas’s Sphere, Iguchi demonstrates how graphic language can evolve beyond flat surfaces. This summer, Ginza Graphic Gallery explores the artist’s dynamic visual universe with ‘Kota Iguchi: Motion Graphics’. The exhibition examines how typography, geometry, paper and physical movement can interact and unfold across time and space. For the occasion, Iguchi has collaborated with artists Rei Ishii, Ryu Mieno and Taku Sasaki/Aki Kanai on three newly commissioned works exploring the intersections of geometric structures, bodily expression and sequential forms. Installed on the gallery’s ground floor, these projects trace the transformation of graphic ideas into sculptural and animated experiences. Meanwhile, the basement space surveys landmark works by Iguchi and CEKAI, highlighting the growing role of immersive visual communication in contemporary culture. Blending motion, architecture and graphic experimentation, the exhibition offers a compelling glimpse into the future of design as a spatial and sensory...

Window manufacturer YKK AP teams up with a number of prestigious Spanish institutions to highlight a small but crucial detail of Antoni Gaudí’s wide-ranging oeuvre. Zooming in on the role apertures played in the Catalan visionary’s singular architectural language, which was defined by organic forms, intricate ornament and a profound understanding of structure and light, ‘Windows on the Future’ forms part of a wider research initiative examining Gaudí’s creative methods. Organised to mark the centenary of Gaudí’s death, the exhibition at 21_21 Design Sight shares its concept with a more extensive presentation at Barcelona’s Palau Güell, a UNESCO World Heritage site, adapting it to the design-focused environment of Gallery 3. Through models, research materials and visual documentation, visitors are invited to explore Gaudí’s enduring ideas and consider how his inventive thinking may inspire the windows, and architecture, of the future.

Go on a floral outing this summer to enjoy the sight of over 20,000 hydrangeas at the 25th annual Hakkeijima Hydrangea Festival. Held from June 6 to June 28, this free event lets you explore the island of Hakkeijima (about 30 minutes by train from Yokohama) and its eight hydrangea spots. Highlights include the indigenous Hakkei-blue hydrangea, a variety created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise theme park. The island features eight hydrangea viewing spots in total, some of which also double as stamp rally checkpoints. Collect stamps from five participating locations and you’ll receive discounts at selected restaurants and shops around the island. Whenever you need to rest your feet and recharge, restaurants across the island are serving special flower-themed drinks and desserts. The most eye-catching of them all is the hydrangea lemon tea (¥520) sold at Cable Car Coffee. The stamp rally is held daily from 10am-4pm.

This June, experimental art gallery Nanzuka Underground is hosting Kenny Scharf, a leading artist of the 1980s East Village Art Movement, who gained prominence alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. The exhibition centres on Scharf’s new series Shimishimikao!, inspired by the phenomenon where blobs resemble faces. It also features a diverse range of works cultivated over his 50-year career, including the Moodz series, composed of expressive circular faces, and the Dire Headlines series, which is characterised by its use of newspaper clippings of environmental destruction in the background. Having spent his formative years in Los Angeles and New York during the 1980s, Scharf has long channelled his concerns about nuclear threats and environmental destruction into his work. In the Shimishimikao series, expressive faces proliferate like dividing cells, creating a vibrant visual rhythm. Beneath these playful, pop-infused images lies Scharf’s desire to spread positivity while confronting, rather than ignoring, the realities of the world around us.

Design-forward brands Sony and Fujifilm are coming together in a unique way to honour and revisit a traditional Japanese craft. Kokeshi dolls, traditional children’s toys turned souvenirs from the Tohoku region of northern Japan, have been reinterpreted and recreated in creative, useful and even humorous ways by the two companies’ design teams. The reimagined dolls, which incorporate modern sensibilities and uses, will be exhibited and sold at Isetan Shinjuku from June 17 to June 25. Sony designers were inspired by the craftsmanship of Sakurai Kokeshi, a family of craftsmen who have been making their own style of kokeshi doll for generations in Naruko Onsen, Miyagi. Expect dolls wearing a knit dress, a silk scarf decorated with the brushstrokes of Sakurai artisans, as well as a rotating kokeshi made by upcycling wood shavings discarded in the process of manufacturing the dolls. From Fujifilm, expect to see a more daring rethink of traditional kokeshi, including a machine-milled stainless steel specimen made by Goto Iron Works in the steel-famed town of Tsubame-Sanjo, or a paper lantern kokeshi by Suzuki Mohei Shoten. The latter is made with washi paper that expands and reshapes like an accordion, lending the same kokeshi a variety of shapes and playful character. The exhibition takes place daily at Isetan Shinjuku’s 5th-floor ‘The Stage Five’ event space.

Suzuko Yamada is among the most compelling younger voices reshaping contemporary Japanese architecture. Known for spaces in which structures, objects, vegetation and human movement seem to collide and resonate rather than quietly harmonise, Yamada approaches architecture as a living environment charged with tension, rhythm and improvisation. ‘Parallel Tunes’ at Toto Gallery Ma is her first solo exhibition. The show introduces Yamada’s vision of architecture as polyphony – a vibrant field in which multiple forms, textures and functions assert themselves simultaneously. Stairs that zigzag across voids, curtains that descend like theatrical gestures, bookshelves that stretch across floors and unexpected bursts of colour all become independent ‘voices’ within a larger spatial composition. This sensibility was already evident in her acclaimed residence daita2019, and has since expanded into increasingly ambitious public works, including a rest facility for Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai. At Gallery Ma, Yamada transforms the exhibition into an environment rather than a retrospective display. Drawings, models, installations and spatial interventions evoke a world where nature, living beings, landscape and manufactured forms echo against one another in restless coexistence. Richly animated and defiantly unbalanced, ‘Parallel Tunes’ suggests that architecture today may be less about imposing order and more about orchestrating the noisy vitality of life itself.

The late Wangari Maathai kickstarted the Mottainai movement in 2005, a year after she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize on account of her political and environmental activism. The Japan-based campaign encourages environmental conservation and sustainable use of resources through a variety of means, ranging from custom vending machines to events like this weekend flea market around Tokyo. There's often a variety of booths propagating the Mottainai message – reduce, reuse, recycle, respect – along with flea market stalls selling clothing, tableware, DVDs, toys, books and other cheap bargains. Depending on the weekend, the market is set up at different locations including Nakano Central Park, Komazawa Olympic Park and the Gotanda TOC building. The dates, times and venues are listed on the event website.

What might the present look like when viewed from fifty years in the future? This provocative question lies at the heart of ‘Spectrum 2076 AD – Conscious Entities of the Coming World’, an ambitious group exhibition at Gyre Gallery in Omotesando. Curated by Takayo Iida, director of the Sgùrr Dearg Institute for Sociology of the Arts, the show brings together works by seven contemporary artists to create a speculative vision of the year 2076. Imagining a post-human future shaped by climate catastrophe, technological singularity and environmental transformation, the exhibition functions as an ‘ideological laboratory’ that examines contemporary existence through a retrospective lens. Drawing on concepts ranging from Jacques Derrida’s hauntology to William James’s stream of consciousness, the project explores both the visible spectrum of light and the metaphorical spectres that linger between memory, technology and perception. Visitors are immersed in a sensory environment anchored by Ken Ikeda’s atmospheric soundscape, while each artist contributes a distinct vision of future consciousness. Mariko Mori proposes cosmic transcendence, Kohei Nawa transforms matter into fluid waves of perception, and Emi Kusano employs artificial intelligence to generate memories of histories that never occurred. Together, the works blur boundaries between reality and fiction, materiality and data, and presence and absence. At once philosophical and deeply immersive, ‘Spectrum 2076 AD’ offers a...

The UNU farmers’ market is one of Tokyo’s longest running and best-attended markets. Taking place every weekend in front of the university’s Aoyama headquarters, this one always attracts a knowledgeable crowd. Organic and local fare is readily available every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, with the farmers themselves happy to provide details about their wares. Plus, there's always a few food trucks on hand if you wish to enjoy a quick meal.