A group of designers, food directors and photographers is showing works depicting rice in “KOME: The Art of Rice” exhibition being held in Akasaka, Tokyo.
The aim, in the organizers’ words, is “to take a new look and rethink rice as an important subject of Japanese society as a whole.”
On display are 36 design pieces depicting rice and rice farming, created by a number of Japanese artists from various backgrounds trying to express the staple grain from different viewpoints.
“My
name is Rice” installation is a display of three giant models of
unhulled, unmilled and polished Nipponbare rice magnified 360 times,
which strongly appeals to visitors that rice is a grain.
The works include humorous objects modeling the shape of rice grains and unique exhibition of tools and materials related to rice harvesting.
Visitors can also see a documentary film deploying stories of people and their personal encounters with the rice culture.
Yoshitaka Ito, 42, a company employee from Tokyo’s Sumida Ward who visited the exhibition with his friend, said he learned things he didn’t know, such as the fact that modern rice varieties multiply themselves 1000-fold, and was impressed by the displays which convey the hard work farmers put into rice harvesting.
Taku Satoh, a graphic designer and one of the directors of the exhibition, said in a message to visitors that he hopes the exhibition offers them an opportunity to realize the significance of what has been left behind in today’s fast-paced society which values efficiency.
The exhibition is directed by Taku Satoh and Shinichi Takemura, professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design, in an effort to take a fresh look at rice as the foundation of Japanese culture.
It is supported by agricultural organizations such as the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu), the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (JA Zen-Noh) and Hokuren Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, as well as farmers and local agricultural cooperatives.
It is organized by 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT gallery in Midtown Tokyo, Roppongi, and the Miyake Issey Foundation, in association with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and other public agencies.
Gallery spokesman Shotaro Okada says organizers hope each of the visitors will have a chance to think more about rice at a time when it is becoming a focus of negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks and when the traditional Japanese cuisine “washoku” is recognized as an intangible world heritage. The exhibition will run until June 15.
The entrance fee is JPY1,000 for adults.
The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and is closed on Tuesdays.
http://english.agrinews.co.jp/?p=2108
The "My name is Rice" installation — giant models of rice in different stages greet visitors to "Kome:The Art of Rice." |
Rice. A bland, white carbohydrate only useful as the substrate for sushi or for mopping up the juices of curry?
Staple food that forms the nourishing core of every meal?
A crop that has molded culture and society?
Or primal sustenance imbued with mystic life force of the gods?
In Japan, at least, rice is much more than just a makeweight on the plate.
The word for cooked rice, “gohan” — always used with its honorific prefix attached — is the same word used for “meal.”
Whether formal kaiseki banquet, casual home cooking or bento lunch box, no Japanese meal is complete without a generous serving of the staple grain (noodles being the notable exception that proves that rule).
For such a tiny grain, the humble Oryza sativa var. japonica plant also carries a heavy freight of social and religious significance.
Most traditional Japanese confections are made of rice flour or pounded sticky rice.
At New Year, round, mirror-shaped kagami mochi dumplings are everywhere.
Even the Japanese flag is often said to represent a rectangular box of white rice with a red umeboshi (plum) pickle in the center.
And yet, as Japan inexorably adopts the Western worldview and lifestyle, the way it eats is changing radically.
The successful campaign to have UNESCO recognize washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) as an intangible world heritage reflects the concern that it is at risk of being overwhelmed by outside influences.
The same concern lies at the heart of “Kome: The Art of Rice,” an exhibition that recently opened at 21_21 Design Sight gallery in Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi.
The aim, in the organizers’ words, is “to take a fresh look at rice as the foundation of Japanese culture… to think about the future of rice.”
Notwithstanding the title, there is not much fine art on display, apart from a reproduction of a wonderful ukiyo-e wood-block print triptych drawn in the 1840s by Utagawa Hiroshige.
Titled “The Battle of Confectionery and Sake,” it depicts the forces of mochi (sticky rice cake) and rice-based confectionery taking on an army of sake and related rice brewing, in the style of the Genji-Heike samurai wars.
There is some beautiful photography, too, depicting a romantic rural culture with images of smiling farmers, traditional timber houses with hearths ablaze and waving fields of jade-green rice plants.
But the rest of the exhibition dwells more on rice-related crafts, and on the natural history of rice.
We see how the grain developed over the millennia. We learn that the introduction of rice growing changed the actual topography of Japan’s countryside, as farmers leveled fields and channeled irrigation courses.
Rice farming has also created complex ecosystems in the paddies that attract insects, amphibians and wildfowl, each of which contribute to the wider environment.
And we are told that modern rice varieties multiply themselves 1000-fold.
That means the 3,000 grains contained in a typical bowl of cooked rice are the yield of three bundles of stalks that have emerged from just three grains of paddy rice.
In the main hall, we get to see actual rice plants close up.
Giant test tubes display almost 50 different strains gathered from around Asia, demonstrating the wide range of variation in size and color.
None of them are white, of course: There are hands-on installations that illustrate how the grain has to be first hulled and then polished to turn brown rice into gleaming white.
The most fascinating part of the exhibition is the four-part documentary film, “Hakusho” by Yu Yamanaka, that plays on a constant loop and is worth watching at least once through.
A farmer in Chiba Prefecture talks in a matter of fact way about the deep sense of connection he feels for the rice he grows and the land he cultivates.
Another clip follows an ancient ritual still performed on the Noto Peninsula (Ishikawa Prefecture) in the deep of winter to welcome the kami (deity) of the rice.
The general tone is elegiac, capturing and celebrating a culture that has developed over the millennia but which might be lost in a generation in the face of rural depopulation and free-trade treaties.
But there is one clip that is much more positive and forward-looking.
It’s the story of how an old sake brewery (also in Chiba) came back from the brink of bankruptcy by abandoning modern production methods and reverting to the traditional techniques.
What is particularly striking is not just that they are doing everything by hand, using only organically grown rice, and even composing their own sake brewing songs, but that most of the workers are young and none over the age of 50.
For many of us, the only glimpse we get of rice actually growing — or at least the paddies where it comes from — is on the brief ride through rural Chiba prefecture as we head into the city center from Narita Airport.
Short of making an extended pilgrimage out into the remote countryside, “Kome: the Art of Rice” offers a fascinating insight into Japan’s rural and spiritual roots.
“Kome: The Art of Rice” at 21_21 Design Sight runs till June 15; open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. ¥1,000. Closed Tue.
www.2121designsight.jp/en/program/kome Robbie Swinnerton writes Tokyo Food File for the Japan Times and blogs about all matters culinary at www.tokyofoodfile.com
From the opening exhibit of three giant rice grains in different guises — unhulled, polished and white — visitors to “Kome: The Art of Rice” are invited to see Japan’s staple grain through fresh eyes.
Watch the magical, brief flowering of a rice plant. Gaze at a flooded paddy from a frog’s-eye perspective. And peer through a magnifying glass as you write your name on a single grain of rice.
Rice is also grown to be drunk, as we are reminded by the extensive display of sake label art — in itself a graphic illustration of how Japan’s traditional tipple is evolving a contemporary sensibility.
And if by the end your appetite has been kindled, a kiosk has been set up inside the Midtown complex selling varieties of rice from around Japan, all freshly polished to order. (R.S.)
It is no exaggeration to say that rice brought me to Japan. By the mid-1970s I had already discovered Japanese cuisine and was soon enthused with the idea of eating simply and in harmony with the seasons.
It struck a chord with me, especially the principle of ichiju sansai, light meals comprising a bowl of soup and three side dishes — with rice always at the center.
Then I encountered Masanobu Fukuoka, the pioneering philosopher-eco farmer of Shikoku through his seminal book, known in English as “The One-Straw Revolution.”
It described an approach to agriculture, a way of life, that made perfect sense.
Repudiating intensive modern farming, he just scattered his seed and left it to the frogs, ducks and migratory birds to fertilize his paddies and keep them weed-free.
I had to find out more. By the summer of 1980, I was in Japan and had made the pilgrimage to Fukuoka Sensei’s farm in rural Ehime Prefecture.
I discovered that his so-called “do nothing agriculture” involved a lot more hard work than he let on in the book, that Japanese mosquitoes were voracious — and that he grew the tastiest rice I’d ever eaten. I was hooked for life. (R.S.)
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/03/10/lifestyle/there-is-a-giant-serving-of-culture-in-one-bowl-of-rice/#.XXuTzbhlBkg
The aim, in the organizers’ words, is “to take a new look and rethink rice as an important subject of Japanese society as a whole.”
On display are 36 design pieces depicting rice and rice farming, created by a number of Japanese artists from various backgrounds trying to express the staple grain from different viewpoints.
The works include humorous objects modeling the shape of rice grains and unique exhibition of tools and materials related to rice harvesting.
Visitors can also see a documentary film deploying stories of people and their personal encounters with the rice culture.
Yoshitaka Ito, 42, a company employee from Tokyo’s Sumida Ward who visited the exhibition with his friend, said he learned things he didn’t know, such as the fact that modern rice varieties multiply themselves 1000-fold, and was impressed by the displays which convey the hard work farmers put into rice harvesting.
Taku Satoh, a graphic designer and one of the directors of the exhibition, said in a message to visitors that he hopes the exhibition offers them an opportunity to realize the significance of what has been left behind in today’s fast-paced society which values efficiency.
The exhibition is directed by Taku Satoh and Shinichi Takemura, professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design, in an effort to take a fresh look at rice as the foundation of Japanese culture.
It is supported by agricultural organizations such as the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu), the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (JA Zen-Noh) and Hokuren Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, as well as farmers and local agricultural cooperatives.
It is organized by 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT gallery in Midtown Tokyo, Roppongi, and the Miyake Issey Foundation, in association with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and other public agencies.
Gallery spokesman Shotaro Okada says organizers hope each of the visitors will have a chance to think more about rice at a time when it is becoming a focus of negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks and when the traditional Japanese cuisine “washoku” is recognized as an intangible world heritage. The exhibition will run until June 15.
The entrance fee is JPY1,000 for adults.
The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and is closed on Tuesdays.
http://english.agrinews.co.jp/?p=2108
Rice. A bland, white carbohydrate only useful as the substrate for sushi or for mopping up the juices of curry?
Staple food that forms the nourishing core of every meal?
A crop that has molded culture and society?
Or primal sustenance imbued with mystic life force of the gods?
In Japan, at least, rice is much more than just a makeweight on the plate.
The word for cooked rice, “gohan” — always used with its honorific prefix attached — is the same word used for “meal.”
Whether formal kaiseki banquet, casual home cooking or bento lunch box, no Japanese meal is complete without a generous serving of the staple grain (noodles being the notable exception that proves that rule).
For such a tiny grain, the humble Oryza sativa var. japonica plant also carries a heavy freight of social and religious significance.
Most traditional Japanese confections are made of rice flour or pounded sticky rice.
At New Year, round, mirror-shaped kagami mochi dumplings are everywhere.
Even the Japanese flag is often said to represent a rectangular box of white rice with a red umeboshi (plum) pickle in the center.
And yet, as Japan inexorably adopts the Western worldview and lifestyle, the way it eats is changing radically.
The successful campaign to have UNESCO recognize washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) as an intangible world heritage reflects the concern that it is at risk of being overwhelmed by outside influences.
The same concern lies at the heart of “Kome: The Art of Rice,” an exhibition that recently opened at 21_21 Design Sight gallery in Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi.
The aim, in the organizers’ words, is “to take a fresh look at rice as the foundation of Japanese culture… to think about the future of rice.”
Notwithstanding the title, there is not much fine art on display, apart from a reproduction of a wonderful ukiyo-e wood-block print triptych drawn in the 1840s by Utagawa Hiroshige.
Titled “The Battle of Confectionery and Sake,” it depicts the forces of mochi (sticky rice cake) and rice-based confectionery taking on an army of sake and related rice brewing, in the style of the Genji-Heike samurai wars.
There is some beautiful photography, too, depicting a romantic rural culture with images of smiling farmers, traditional timber houses with hearths ablaze and waving fields of jade-green rice plants.
But the rest of the exhibition dwells more on rice-related crafts, and on the natural history of rice.
We see how the grain developed over the millennia. We learn that the introduction of rice growing changed the actual topography of Japan’s countryside, as farmers leveled fields and channeled irrigation courses.
Rice farming has also created complex ecosystems in the paddies that attract insects, amphibians and wildfowl, each of which contribute to the wider environment.
And we are told that modern rice varieties multiply themselves 1000-fold.
That means the 3,000 grains contained in a typical bowl of cooked rice are the yield of three bundles of stalks that have emerged from just three grains of paddy rice.
In the main hall, we get to see actual rice plants close up.
Giant test tubes display almost 50 different strains gathered from around Asia, demonstrating the wide range of variation in size and color.
None of them are white, of course: There are hands-on installations that illustrate how the grain has to be first hulled and then polished to turn brown rice into gleaming white.
The most fascinating part of the exhibition is the four-part documentary film, “Hakusho” by Yu Yamanaka, that plays on a constant loop and is worth watching at least once through.
A farmer in Chiba Prefecture talks in a matter of fact way about the deep sense of connection he feels for the rice he grows and the land he cultivates.
Another clip follows an ancient ritual still performed on the Noto Peninsula (Ishikawa Prefecture) in the deep of winter to welcome the kami (deity) of the rice.
The general tone is elegiac, capturing and celebrating a culture that has developed over the millennia but which might be lost in a generation in the face of rural depopulation and free-trade treaties.
But there is one clip that is much more positive and forward-looking.
It’s the story of how an old sake brewery (also in Chiba) came back from the brink of bankruptcy by abandoning modern production methods and reverting to the traditional techniques.
What is particularly striking is not just that they are doing everything by hand, using only organically grown rice, and even composing their own sake brewing songs, but that most of the workers are young and none over the age of 50.
For many of us, the only glimpse we get of rice actually growing — or at least the paddies where it comes from — is on the brief ride through rural Chiba prefecture as we head into the city center from Narita Airport.
Short of making an extended pilgrimage out into the remote countryside, “Kome: the Art of Rice” offers a fascinating insight into Japan’s rural and spiritual roots.
“Kome: The Art of Rice” at 21_21 Design Sight runs till June 15; open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. ¥1,000. Closed Tue.
www.2121designsight.jp/en/program/kome Robbie Swinnerton writes Tokyo Food File for the Japan Times and blogs about all matters culinary at www.tokyofoodfile.com
Watch the magical, brief flowering of a rice plant. Gaze at a flooded paddy from a frog’s-eye perspective. And peer through a magnifying glass as you write your name on a single grain of rice.
Rice is also grown to be drunk, as we are reminded by the extensive display of sake label art — in itself a graphic illustration of how Japan’s traditional tipple is evolving a contemporary sensibility.
It is no exaggeration to say that rice brought me to Japan. By the mid-1970s I had already discovered Japanese cuisine and was soon enthused with the idea of eating simply and in harmony with the seasons.
It struck a chord with me, especially the principle of ichiju sansai, light meals comprising a bowl of soup and three side dishes — with rice always at the center.
Then I encountered Masanobu Fukuoka, the pioneering philosopher-eco farmer of Shikoku through his seminal book, known in English as “The One-Straw Revolution.”
It described an approach to agriculture, a way of life, that made perfect sense.
Repudiating intensive modern farming, he just scattered his seed and left it to the frogs, ducks and migratory birds to fertilize his paddies and keep them weed-free.
I had to find out more. By the summer of 1980, I was in Japan and had made the pilgrimage to Fukuoka Sensei’s farm in rural Ehime Prefecture.
I discovered that his so-called “do nothing agriculture” involved a lot more hard work than he let on in the book, that Japanese mosquitoes were voracious — and that he grew the tastiest rice I’d ever eaten. I was hooked for life. (R.S.)
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/03/10/lifestyle/there-is-a-giant-serving-of-culture-in-one-bowl-of-rice/#.XXuTzbhlBkg
““What I think, regardless of the way I tell the story, I think that Chuck is probably a pretty good guy,” Sonnen said.
“He’s gotta walk around with that haircut, looks like he lost a bet. That can’t be easy to do. … It’s not easy to be Chuck.
You’re broke, you snorted all your money away.
It’s not an easy to life.
He doesn’t need me to kick him while he’s down, either.
If he wanted to come back, we could agree to a match and then maybe things would be different.
But I think in this setting, I wish him well.”
Things heated up back in the fall with Sonnen and Liddell going back and forth on social media and in interviews.
Liddell said people mistook what he was trying to say initially.
“You know him, he runs his mouth,” Liddell said.
“He’s saying I turned down a fight with him twice; no one has offered me a fight with him.
Like I said, he started lipping off at me when he saw me working out in the gym.
I said, if I was gonna come back he’d be a perfect match.
He can’t break an egg with his hands, he’s not gonna outwrestle me, he’s not gonna be able to lay on top of me — he’s not gonna pull that lay and pray with me.
“Chael is Chael. He’s got a big mouth and that’s how he’s made his living.
He’s not the most exciting fighter in the world, but he’s got a big mouth and people like to watch him.”
https://www.instagram.com/boringpgh/
Sonnen, 40, will fight former Liddell foe Quinton Jackson in the main event of Bellator 192 on Saturday night in Los Angeles.
It’s a first-round matchup in the Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix.
Liddell said he might attend the event at The Forum in Inglewood, but he’s not sure yet.
As far as who he’s picking, Liddell said it “depends on which ‘Rampage’ shows up.”
Liddell had lunch with Bellator president Scott Coker a few months ago, but the discussion was only about being an ambassador for Bellator, not a fighter, Liddell said.
If he were to come back — and it’s not out of the question — Liddell said it won’t be because he needs the money and it won’t be because Sonnen is poking at him.
“If he was saying something for a specific reason to get a certain response from me, I’m not gonna let it happen,” Liddell said.
“Sorry. I’m not gonna let him get to me.
If it was something where he really pissed me off and I wanted to fight him, I’d show up to his house.
We don’t need the money, I’ll show up to his house.
We’ll find out real quick.
“The problem with him to take it serious is he takes a lot of liberty with facts.
He doesn’t need his facts to be true — he just makes them up as he goes.
It’s hard to get mad at someone who everything he’s saying is made up.”
It’s a first-round matchup in the Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix.
Liddell said he might attend the event at The Forum in Inglewood, but he’s not sure yet.
As far as who he’s picking, Liddell said it “depends on which ‘Rampage’ shows up.”
Liddell had lunch with Bellator president Scott Coker a few months ago, but the discussion was only about being an ambassador for Bellator, not a fighter, Liddell said.
If he were to come back — and it’s not out of the question — Liddell said it won’t be because he needs the money and it won’t be because Sonnen is poking at him.
“If he was saying something for a specific reason to get a certain response from me, I’m not gonna let it happen,” Liddell said.
“Sorry. I’m not gonna let him get to me.
If it was something where he really pissed me off and I wanted to fight him, I’d show up to his house.
We don’t need the money, I’ll show up to his house.
We’ll find out real quick.
“The problem with him to take it serious is he takes a lot of liberty with facts.
He doesn’t need his facts to be true — he just makes them up as he goes.
It’s hard to get mad at someone who everything he’s saying is made up.”
It’s pretty clear to Liddell that Sonnen is just trying to lure him out of retirement verbally.
Though the former UFC slugger is unsure if Sonnen understands what he’d be getting himself into.
“I don’t think he realizes how hard I hit,” Liddell said.
“But he knows it’s a big pay check for him.
It seems like he doesn’t mind being a punching bag for a big pay check.”
https://www.mmafighting.com/2018/1/17/16899948/chuck-liddell-if-chael-sonnens-comments-really-got-to-me-id-show-up-to-his-house
