The common space of the Toda Building will be used as a venue for forward-looking public art, offering emerging artists and curators opportunities to present large-scale works that engage with the urban landscape. APK Public is a public art program that enriches the ways people live and work, allowing visitors and office workers to engage with artworks on a daily basis, and aiming to stimulate creativity and expand perspectives. 

In this first exhibition, we welcome Iida Shihoko, an internationally curator, who presents works based on the concept of “Helix―Speculating on Infinite Possibilities,” an effort to transform the stagnation of uncertain times into a positive outlook for the future.

HELIX―Speculating Infinite Possibilities

With the helix as a new symbol of the Toda Building, artists present works on this theme, characterized by spiral structure, rotation, circulation, sequential connection, pendulum movement, and sustainability that represent the mobility, movement, and flexibility of people who gather in the building, while at the same time evoking aspirations toward upward mobility and sustainability with eyes on the future.

For this work, Yuko MOHRI (ACC 2014) drew inspiration from the Model Showing the Motion of an Earth Particle during Earthquake (collection of the National Museum of Nature and Science). This model, which uses wire to render the earth’s movements visible in three dimensions, is based on records of an earthquake that struck Tokyo on January 15, 1887, documented by pioneering seismologist Dr. Sekiya Seikei  (1854–1896). While Mohri’s work appears to be a static sculpture, departing from the kinetic art for which she is known, in its reference to a seismologist’s model that embodies the kinetic energy of the Earth’s motion, it is an extension of her previous practice. Exhibited in a building equipped with cutting-edge seismic isolation technology, it represents the ceaseless negotiation between people and the natural environment.