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Dinner Experience
Taste of Reminiscence, Delicacies from Nature
Collaboration with FARO

11 September - 26 September 2020
Venue : FARO
Organizer : Shiseido Company, Limited/Shiseido Parlour
Executive Chef : KOTARO NODA (FARO)
Pastry Chef : MINEKO KATO (FARO)
Sous Chef : YUJI MAETA (FARO)
General Manager : KAZUHIRO GOCHO (FARO)
Management : Shinya Furui
Photo : Shinya Furui

Collaboration that developed a work in an art gallery into a gastronomy course menu.

Updated the interrupted“Taste of Reminiscence, Delicacies from Nature: Ayako Suwa” exhibition, updated for the corona era and beyond.
In late February 2020, Suwa moved her creative base to a forested area of Yamanashi, and says that living amid nature brought many new encounters, and new realizations. Reflecting Suwa’s time in the forest, the exhibition will now endeavor to delve even deeper into its theme of relating to and tasting nature, in what promises to be a priceless opportunity to experience this unconventional artist’s “inspiration from nature.”


[Message from the artist]

A month or so after the opening of “Taste of Reminiscence, Delicacies from Nature” at Shiseido Gallery, the world was forced to a grinding halt. Told to stay home, shut ourselves away, only breathe the minimum of outside air, we stopped meeting each other, and watched as the numbers grew, along with our sense of dread. On February 29, 2020, leap year day, the Shiseido Gallery closed its doors temporarily.

By March I was in the forest, following the news from 700 meters up in the mountains, not a convenience store or supermarket in sight. Drowned out by the sounds of birds and insects and animals, any hint of pandemic chaos that reached my ears felt very remote. In this forest full of things I could probably eat, as well as being in danger of being eaten myself, I was eager to experiment with my own wild side, dulled by life in Tokyo.

I make talismans using wood thinned from the forest. Gather the phytoncides that fill it. Like a magical energy radiated by trees, phytoncides are antimicrobial defensive agents that trees, being unable to move, emit as vapor to protect themselves from external irritants, and purify the forest. As humans we are privileged to share in this, enjoying the antibacterial, antioxidant, relaxing and immune-boosting benefits of phytoncides. The forest is full of this feral energy, and I would gather that fresh, moist aura, and send sylvan talismans to friends I had been unable to see for a while.

For six months, shut in that underground space in a deserted Ginza,“Taste of Reminiscence, Delicacies from Nature” awaited its tasters, like a delicate morsel in the back of the mind, forgotten, maturing in seclusion. I’d almost forgotten it myself. The world had grown so dramatic, and I was willing to accept that transformation. More than anything, I wanted to evolve as a living thing.

Perhaps we now live in a world where it is no longer possible to share our inner sensations with someone, enter a closed room, eat some strange thing by hand.

In a world where intense contact is proscribed, only our imaginations may fire with intensity. Thanks to the pandemic we now have the power to acquire more imagination than ever before, and taste all kinds of things.

In August, in a Ginza no longer devoid of human life, a forest will flourish behind the stifling humidity of masks. Forests dwelling in minds will spill over with every cough. If ever there was a time to taste the nature long submerged in those minds, it is now.

In our relationship with nature, perhaps humans managed to evolve, undergoing a transformation to fit the natural world.

One day, at my last supper, I hope to enjoy a “Taste of Reminiscence, Delicacies from Nature.”

Conscious, unconscious, my very self:
Tastier the more I taste, with more umami the more I chew.

Beautiful tastes of reminiscence, lie within you.

Ayako Suwa