From its base in the northeastern part of Sumida-ku, the project “Fantasia! Fantasia!: A community where lifestyles are made real” has carried out its activities on the theme of dialogue and learning in the community since 2018. As part of the project’s “Practices” program linking awareness gleaned so far to specific action, art collective Olta is being invited to hold the exhibition “Hyper Popular Art “STAND PLAY”: From Dawn till Dawn.”

In the same way that art projects flourished in various communities in the early 2000s, artist-in-residence programs and alternative spaces were also gaining momentum in Sumida-ku. This was no passing trend; local communities and the area’s cultural landscape have been enhanced by an influx of diverse creators that has continued to the present day, and the neighborhood has undergone gradual change. Noticeable too however, are the huge changes brought about over the last few years by new developments around stations triggered by the construction of Tokyo Skytree, reconstruction to incorporate earthquake-resistant features, and universities attracted to the area. But big changes like these are nothing new. When we look back over the last hundred years or so, other events like the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo have also drastically changed the landscape of the neighborhood.

The area’s identity has been forged by such changes, big and small. But within this history of complex change, there must have existed the voices of people who never developed “community” in the sense of the “community development” going on today, and ways of life that did not endure as part of the landscape.
Through this exhibition, we review the present and try to imagine the cityscape of the future by imagining the timeless, nonhomogeneous small histories of the individual amidst the town planning, the industrial structure, the different ethnicities and genders.