Born in 1960, graduated from the Department of Sociology, Waseda University, and has been the curator of the Watari-um Museum of Contemporary Art since 1992. He was the first Japanese person to be involved in the international contemporary art exhibition Documenta 9 in 1992. He is a curator of the Reborn Arts Festival.

Born in 1994, she studied art history in New York before returning to Japan. Currently, she works at Sohen-Ryu Fushin-An, one of the leading Japanese tea ceremony houses. In 2022, she hosted a tea ceremony with the theme of "peace" at Tenryuji Temple in Kyoto. She used works by Yoko Ono and the Dalai Lama in the tea room as a bridge between contemporary art and traditional Japanese Tendo culture. Her plan is to showcase not only contemporary art, but also tea ceremony and other aspects of Japanese historical culture

Rudolf Steiner: Philosopher and educator from Austria who advocated for human spiritual development and holistic education

Shizuko Watari: The first director of the museum and the founder of Galerie Watari, the predecessor of the current contemporary art gallery

Chuta Ito : A Japanese architect known as a pioneer of modern architecture, who left numerous architectural works featuring a blend of Japanese and Western styles and sophisticated spatial composition

Shuji Terayama: A Japanese playwright and film director known for his unique use of language and unconventional expression, making him a rebellious artist.

Sen no Rikyu: A tea master who established the tea ceremony and pursued a philosophy of beauty and simplicity, playing an important role in the culture of the Japanese tea ceremony.

Minakata Kumagusu: A Japanese naturalist and folklorist who contributed to Japan's nature and culture through extensive research and exploration.

Okakura Tenshin: An artist and art critic in the Meiji era of Japan who advocated for the introduction of Western art and the fusion of traditional Japanese art, and had a significant influence on the art scene in Japan.

Yuu: Personally, I feel that Rudolf Steiner was a philosopher and not typically one to be included within the realm of contemporary artists. Chūta Itō is an architect, Shūji Terayama was known for his performance theatre and they have both exhibited at Watari Museum. How did you decide who to showcase in the exhibits?

Koichi: One reason for this is my mother Shizuko Watari, the first museum director. She loved literature and philosophy. After the museum established itself as Watari-um, I think the biggest influence was hosting the exhibition on Tibetan medicine with the Dalai Lama in 1995.

Because the Dalai Lama was exiled by the Chinese government, we didn’t have access to many things of great artistic value. When we thought about what to do with the exhibition, my sister, mother, and I all thought that astronomy and medicine were interesting topics. Eventually, we settled on medicine. Even if the Dalai Lama couldn't come, we thought it would be interesting to invite his personal physician. There’s a medicine made from minerals called ganyaku, and we exhibited those mineral ingredients along with their purposes and effects. I think this field of study is also closely linked to art.

The interesting thing about contemporary art is its contextual thought. Something that was not considered beautiful yesterday could be perceived entirely differently today when another artist comes along and says "no, this is beautiful!".

Yuu: Much like Sen no Rikyu! Even if something is in tatters, if he says it holds value, it holds value.

Koichi: Precisely. For us, Sen no Rikyu is also a contemporary artist. He sees the world in that way, and it's always interesting when someone introduces a new concept.

At least that's how I see it. And just as we exhibit concepts and ideology, we’ve also worked with figures that created new genres during the Meiji era in Japan at Watari-um. For example, Kumagusu Minakata was a biologist and an environmental activist, Chuta Ito was the one to found the architecture department at the University of Tokyo and Tenshin Okakura was the first Japanese curator in art.

Koichi: The purpose of the exhibition was to showcase the rituals of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan philosophy through perfomance, not for its religious value. We invited the Dalai Lama, his personal physician and four young monks to perform the highest-ranking mandala ritual of the Kalachakra Mandala. The Dalai Lama would first chant the sutras and scatter flowers while the young monks drew mandalas in the sand every day.

The sand mandalas would have held a significant value on its own if we had fixed the sand and put it in a glass case, but we wanted to complete the ritual properly. We dismantled the entire sand mandala, and released the sand into the Sumida River to purify the area. We then brought the water from the river and used it to wash the table used in the ritual. Again, this act was not intended as a religious one, but as a way to showcase the performance of the ritual. The washed table is kept safe here, maybe one day it we could do another exhibition on it.

Koichi: My mother asked the Dalai Lama a question. Back then, in contemporary art, not many people came and she was losing money. She asked him what she should do. He said, "In anything, isn’t it an important that people come?" From then on, we started doing actively hosting lectures, workshops, and other events, in not just contemporary art, but also other subjects too. We made it into a place where people can come to do all sorts of things, not just to view exhibitions. Since then, we’ve been confidently doing this, without hesitation.

Yuu: When the Dalai Lama came to the exhibition, I was still under one year old, so the only memory I have is of the episode where I got a name from him. But at the recent tea ceremony when we decided to hang my name scroll, your words about how countries would ultimately be remembered touched me deeply.

You told me, "A country is not defined by its borders, but by its culture. If at the end, the culture remains, it remains as a country." This part really resonated with me. I strongly felt that we must protect not just our art, but also our culture.

Koichi: Yes. This is what the Dalai Lama also valued most and also education. Funny story, did you know that the Dalai Lama is earning the most in the exiled Tibetan government? He earns all of it himself and invests it in education, such as sending Tibetan students to Harvard. He gives money to everyone and ensures that his words are passed on. The act of preserving culture is the key to preserving a country, this is what he said.