Not many people may immediately know what a Geisai is when they hear the word. The school festival of Tokyo University of the Arts(TUA) and Music has been called this way for a long time.
I know a little about this school because I have friends of the same age who are scholars and artists who graduated from TUA, and I’ve been indebted to them for many years. Recently, I had a new acquaintance who told me that the festival was very exciting, so I went to the Geisai 2023 held from September 1 to 3 with my GF10 + Leica DG15mm in hand with a light heart. However…
It was a mistake to go there with a light heart. I am sorry.
First of all, this year’s heat wave did not abate even in September. By the time I arrived at TUA, a 10-minute walk from Ueno Station, I was already drenched in sweat, and my body screamed from exposure to the unusually high temperatures. On top of that, there is this unusual crowd overflowing onto the small campus.
This is the area near the main gate of the Faculty of Fine Arts.
View of the exhibition room on the first floor of the “painting building”.
What on earth are you all doing here in this hot weather?
The fact that it was the first time in a long time that the exhibition was held normally after Corona may have contributed to its popularity, but the crowds were so large that one wonders if there are that many people who like painting, sculpture, and music in the world. The air conditioning in the building was almost inoperative due to the unusually high temperatures and the unusually large number of visitors, the drink vending machines were sold out at every turn, there were long lines at the juice and beer booths, and there was no shortage of places to sit and rest.
Anyway, it was too hot and there were too many people, so there was almost no room for a permanent beginner photographer to enjoy taking snapshots with a sense of affluence, and for me, it turned into a half survival event for several hours.
I must emphasize that the TUA and the organizers of the Geisai are probably well prepared for the event. But this year, the heat wave and the huge crowds may have exceeded their expectations.
I have tried to put together a series of “excuses for not being able to take good pictures” in as many words as I could. After this, I would like to show you some snaps of the Art Festival without excuses.
The campuses of the music and fine art faculties (commonly known as the “Music-School” and “Art-school” face each other across this green street that runs from Ueno Station to Yanaka, passing in front of the National Tokyo Museum.
This picture was taken from the Yanaka direction, with the Music-school on the left and the Art- school on the right. The street is in the opposite direction of Ueno Station, so the pedestrian traffic is sparse.
On the other hand, the promenade in Ueno Park from the station to the university is lined with stores selling accessories and sundries handmade by Art-school students during the Geisai and is very popular. It was almost like Harajuku Takeshita street, and it was so crowded that you could not go up and down both ways as you wanted.
The Music-school was packed with performances of all sizes and styles, and the opportunity to hear top-notch performers (many of students already won top prizes in famous competitions) for free sold out almost immediately after reservations were made. Naturally, there was no way I could get in on a whim.
As you can see in the photo above, the exhibition of artworks by the Art-school was also crowded, so the scope of what I could see was limited, but I was particularly attracted to some paintings by Japanese painting majors. I took photos of individual works, but I don’t want to post them on this blog without permission.
The artworks on display were not all easy for me to understand.
This is a cutout of a small portion of a collaborative exhibit by (I think) a group of craft students. The exhibition was intended to show how a large number of materials, each made by a large number of people, hung on a net and interacted (artistically) with each other in balance with gravity… I’m really sorry I don’t understand. I think I felt something when I decided to take a picture but…
Compared to the above, the “Mikoshi” work by the first-year students is much easier to understand. First-year students of both the art and music faculties collaborate to create portable shrines and happi coats, and compete with each other in a performance contest held every year. This year’s prize-winning work (University President’s Prize) was this lion mikoshi.
Can you feel its enormity in contrast with the shadows around it? It seems that the students majoring in sculpture were at the center of this work, and it is a powerful work of art.
Escaping the crowd, I snapped this photo of one of the two brick buildings in a corner of the school.
Red Brick Buildings No. 1 and No. 2 are both from the Meiji period. The photo shows Building No. 2, which was originally the Tokyo Library in Yushima and was later moved here as the first school building when Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (Tokyo Art School) was established. The history of the building is overwhelming in front of its quiet appearance.
So, this was my real debut photo walk with the GF10 + Leica DG15mm F1.7 combination. The conditions were quite difficult, so I am not very satisfied with the results, but as I expected, a bright lens with an angle of view this wide (30mm on a 35mm equivalent) that allows you to get close is really easy to use. I could understand once again why the GRIII (28mm), which claims to be the best snapshooter, sells so well.
