My heart was bounding with expectations to the unknown art world awaiting me while looking at greens, which regained their colour after the typhoon. Perhaps it was because I did not go a long way for a long time. The three-hour-journey to Obihiro City, Hokkaido, where the art event “Demeter” is held, was not so long.

“Demeter.” I think it is an unfamiliar word to everybody. This is the name of a goddess in the Greek myths and she symbolises the harvest, fertility and nurturing. Obihiro City is located in the eastern part of Hokkaido and the extensive Tokachi plains has been bringing people a variety of stock farm products and crops since 1882. The name of the goddess “Demeter” seems to be suitable for this event because the aim of this art event is to reconsider the natural features and history of the Tokachi plains as well as the coexistence of people and land through contemporary art.

I felt a free feeling since I arrived at Obihiro station. The roads are very wide and the noen of the small number of people know me. This set me free and I felt like opening my arms wide and looking up at the sky. The main venue of the event “Obihiro racecourse” made me imagine a wide space with a green lawn as the beat of my heart grew again. Creating works at an atelier, then displaying them at a gallery is a usual form of an exhibition. However, this international contemporary art exhibition, which is held at outside, is a bit different from that. The artists visited Obihiro, determined the characters of the land, and created works that could be made specifically for that area. This style is called “the site oriented installation”, which digs up the memory of the land to link to the future, is used in “Demeter.” I was holding coins and got on a bus to the venue on the day on which the temperature rose above 30 degrees centigrade.

Obihiro Lightmachine (Gangway), Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Horbelt (Germany)

A Saturday racecourse. After passing by the main stand, where middle-age-men with red pencil in their ears gathered, I found the entrance of “Demeter.” Then, the first thing that caught my eyes was “Obihiro Lightmachine (Gangway)” by Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Horbelt.

Obihiro Lightmachine (Gangway), Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Horbelt (Germany)

They are a German unit, known for creating architectural structures by piling up plastic beverage cases. A light tunnel is created with green plastic beverage cases but I did not think it was made with plastic cases from a distance. The inside was cooler than I thought and I lay down on the mat provided there. I could enjoy the sense of a different space while a special smell was floating on the wind from stables. The strength of the sunlight was growing when I came out from the tunnel. And the green colour of the cases looked different.