Premiere of Nile Koetting’s New Work Blossoms – fulfilment at Warehouse TERRADA from September 11th (Thu), 2025

TENNOZ ART WEEK 2025 is an art event aimed at bridging Japan and the international art scene, and contributing to the invigoration of international cultural tourism by bringing world-class art content to Tennoz, Tokyo and creating a platform for domestic and international art professionals and enthusiasts to gather. Last year, the event attracted approximately 30,000 visitors, and the area of Tennoz gained widespread attention as an international art district. Now in its third year, the event will be held across Warehouse TERRADA’s six venues, showcasing a variety of exhibitions and workshops to offer a broad presentation of the current state of contemporary art.

Blossoms – fulfilment is the first performative installation in Japan presented by Nile Koetting, who adapted it to the warehouse space in Tennoz. Koetting has often used repurposed warehouses as rehearsal studios and training spaces throughout his career. Thanks to this experience, he can see a warehouse as not just a base for logistics but a venue to hone one’s expression and a place where identity can be repeatedly restructured. Warehouse TERRADA G3-6F, the venue for this exhibition, retains the air of a warehouse while being a space where a wide range of artistic expression is born. In this work, the artist brings the history of the venue into a dialogue with his own interpretation, expressing the process through which the human body is trained, edited, and ultimately commodified.
This work focuses on audience members paid to clap and cheer, known as sakura in kabuki theater and claques in Western opera. In doing so, it makes a sort of ceremonial practice out of the act of viewing, which, even in this age of everything having commercial value, is still endowed with an exceptional meaning. Koetting uses his unique artistic language to deeply question the very meaning of our bodies in the modern world, as well as the functions assigned to them.

This work’s performance is not limited to the space of the venue and spreads outside to the surrounding urban environment. This expansion into the city transforms the very act of viewing into a new sensory framework that jolts the viewer’s sense of perception.

Looking back, I recall that the practice place where I first moved my body was a warehouse space surrounded by concrete walls. Thereafter as well, I repeatedly came into contact with warehouse-like spaces such as dance studios, art studios, photographic studios, and clubs. In them, my body and various other things were edited, directed, and sent to the external world.
The performance unfolding in Blossoms no longer consists of corporeal movements and motions. Blossoms prompts us to take another look at the performability born within artificial networks where fragments of ads, products, data, and objects are floating around homogeneously. What are moving are not bodies but information, lines of sight, and premonitions. This work may be something like “flower-viewing” that is performed within duplicated nature, directed emotions, and reproduced seasons. The borderlines between the authentic and the fake spread out nebulously, and I think it would be meaningless to attempt to discern them. I am instead currently fascinated by the questions of what we take away from a situation with an absence of distinction between the authentic and the fake, and how we engage with it.

Title: Blossoms – fulfilment
Dates: September 11th (Thu) – September 15th (Mon)
Time: 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Performance 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM)
Venue: Warehouse TERRADA G3-6F (2-6-10 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo)
Admission: Adults 1,500 yen, Students (university, vocational college) 800 yen, Students under high school age: Free
Ticket Reservation: https://artsticker.app/events/86627
* Also available are tickets bundled with Atsushi Suwa Solo Exhibition You Are Beautiful at WHAT MUSEUM (Adults 2,500 yen).

Artwork & Concept: Nile Koetting
Text & Script: Filipa da Rocha Nunes
Performers: Tomomi Onuki, Fernando Kague, Patryk Paluszewski, Monika Schmitz, Ippei Tanaka, Ikumi Yang
Visuals: Yoshihiro Inada, Kyoko Yasuhara a.k.a. Chinjao Rosu, Shunsuke Watanabe
Sound Design: Nozomu Matsumoto, E.O.U, more eaze, Hideki Umezawa
Costumes: Belle Santos
Choreography: Felipe Amaya Gonzalez
Graphic Design: Minami Shimakage
Web Design & System Programming: Elliott Etzkorn
Technical Director: Yutaka Endo (Luftzug)
Sound: Raku Nakahara (KARABINER Inc.)
Lighting: Hiroaki Tashiro (DOTWORKS Inc.)
Producer: Anna Kato, Shin Sumimoto (MoS Art LLC)
Organizer: Warehouse TERRADA
Cooperation: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Embassy of France in Japan/Institut Français, Museum of Logistics, Narita International Airport Corporation, AmiX Co., Ltd.
* This project is being implemented with the support of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and a grant under the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Waterfront Vibrancy Creation Project.