teamLab Botanical Garden to open in Osaka this summer, transforming a 240,000-sqm garden into experiential art at night

Art collective teamLab is opening a permanent nighttime exhibition, teamLab Botanical Garden Osaka, in Osaka City this summer, 2022. The outdoor exhibition transforms the 240,000-sqm Nagai Botanical Garden, home to 1,200 plant species, into an experiential art space that changes interactively with the behavior of nature and the presence of people.

teamLab Botanical Garden Osaka is a botanical garden by day, and an art space by night. The space transforms interactively, influenced by wind and rain, as well as by the behavior of the people and birds, making them an essential part of the works. “Through this experience, they become part of the long continuity of time”, says teamLab, “so that the artworks, people, and nature; the self and others; the past, present, and future; all intersect and form a continuity without boundaries.”

The exhibition is based on teamLab’s art project Digitized Nature, which explores how nature can become art. The concept of the project is that non-material digital technology can turn nature into art without harming it.

チームラボ《呼応する小宇宙 – 固形化された光の色, Sunrise and Sunset》©チームラボ ※参考画像
teamLab, Resonating Microcosms – Solidified Light Color © teamLab

“Humans cannot comprehend time longer than their own lifespans. In other words, there is a boundary in our understanding of the long continuity of time. Natural forms have been molded by the continuous interactions between people and nature. We can perceive the long duration of time in these forms, and through them, we believe we can explore the boundary in our cognition of the long continuity of time.

By using these existences that embody time as they are, we endeavor to explore the long continuity of time and continue to accumulate meaning in this place today,” says teamLab.

チームラボ《浮遊する呼応するランプ – ワンストローク》©チームラボ ※参考画像
teamLab, Floating Resonating Lamps – One Stroke © teamLab