EXHIBITION / POP UP
SHURREAL TOKYO by Yulia Shur
a project showing Tokyo's architecture from a different perspective.
Date: 2019.6.29 (Sat) - 7.3 (Wed)
Time: 10:00 - 22:00
Reception party: 6.29 (Sat) 20:00 - 23:00
*Music experience / Performance by RHYME
Sometimes foreigner’s image of Japan is limited to the sequence of most recognizable icons.
Nearly perfectly shaped Mt.Fuji. Traditional shrines squeezed in extensively urban landscapes.
Ubiquitous vending machines - one of the signs of reverence for robotization.
Annual spring bathing of cities in sakura petals of all shades of pink..
However, this standardized perception fades away the moment one starts deliberately experience the space around.
If Tokyo was a factory, it would be fueled by its architecture: oddly shaped, vibrant, extremely eclectic.
Tokyo architecture creates the feeling of irregular, non-linear, symbiotic space
where an explorer is not an observer but a participant.
Tokyo shows irregularity as opposed to Western clarity.
There are no central spaces like squares in major European cities, no unity in the appearance of the streets.
As an urban researcher B.Shelton noticed, “Tokyo is a city illustrating chaos theory”.
These chaotic labyrinths of little lines enmeshed within big networks are like a constructor.
The buildings and its surroundings are often linked, sharing space composition or color palette.
Greenery is also interwoven with the concrete:
secret gardens, spacious parks or just flowerbeds outside apartment blocks
give public spaces unique character.
All these features reminded me of solving a puzzle: with pieces of Japanese architecture being its parts and us, as viewers, attempting to solve it or re-create.
Bearing this in mind, I created series of pictures SHURREAL TOKYO.
It shows combinations of Tokyo architectural landscapes, infused with lines and colors.
Surreal mixtures. Slick surfaces, voluminous structures, grid graphs.
Futuristic patterns, somehow reminding of fortune slips, omikuji,
сut into strips and moving with wind in front of shrine.
Fenestration of windows, resembling suprematist paintings.
Enter the SHURREAL world and play with it in your mind like it is a puzzle.
Yulia Shur
yuliashur.com
inst: @s_h_u_r , @shurrreal
