Someone's public and private / Something's public and private

"Someone's public and private / Something's public and private" was a one-day exhibition held at Tompkins Square Park in New York's East Village.

Located in the heart of Tompkins Square, Central Plaza is symbolically home to a large, ancient elm tree. It is believed that in 1966, Krishna guru Prabhuvada held the first outdoor chanting session accompanied by percussion instruments in a public space outside of India under this tree. Many cultural events continue to be held here today.

Through his 2018 exhibitions "Compositions" (Pioneer Works) and "~ing" (Shiseido Gallery), Hasunuma has been exploring the relationships between people, as well as the relationships between people and non-humans (such as nature, technology, etc.).

This time, we will be developing a project to experience the relationship between "public" and "private" in a more concrete way at Central Plaza in New York, which can be said to be a collection of diversity where various relationships exist.

As the words "public" and "private" in the title of this exhibition suggest, Hasunuma explores the various relationships that surround us as humans, attempting through his work to shift the nature of those relationships from public to private, and to connect them. He chose to exhibit his work in a public space such as a park, rather than a so-called white cube space, because he felt that it would allow him to consider these attempts while also approaching them from a relative perspective. At the same time, it also provides an opportunity to think about the existence of the individual within society and groups.

Because it is a park, there are many different people, sounds, and relationships there. There is a truly diverse range of people, including friends chatting, parents and children playing, people lost in thought, men and women of all ages playing chess at the chess tables, homeless people, political demonstrations, and small animals living hidden in the middle of a big city. There is a great deal of diversity. Public and private can coexist in parallel here.

Hasunuma has created instructions at the venue, which the audience will use to interact with the piece and become part of it. Hasunuma has previously said that "music is born in daily life, starts from the individual and returns to the individual," and we hope that this will be an opportunity for you to experience how each person interacts with the piece in the public space of a park, and how it ultimately becomes a private piece.