[Review] Yuta Nakamura / Review of the 162nd Meirin Tea Gathering 'Triangulation of Earthy Taste: Prologue, 1-1'
A review of a tea gathering on 'Earthy Taste' compared to a sumo tournament playoff, exploring direct sensory experience.Summary
This article is a review of the 162nd Meirin Tea Gathering, "Triangulation of Earthy Taste: Prologue, 1-1," held at the Kyoto Art Center. Author Yuta Nakamura could not attend the event, so he gathered fragmentary information—a pre-visit, photos, and notes—to write the review. The tea gathering's concept, inspired by anthropologist Junzo Kawata's "Cultural Triangulation," aimed to compare pottery from Japan, France, and Benin to challenge stereotypes through direct sensory experience of "earthy taste." Struggling to grasp this taste from fragments alone, Nakamura draws a creative analogy to a sumo tournament's championship playoff he watched on TV, noting how spectators enjoy not just the "taste" (skill/style) but the visceral "feeling" of the clash. He realizes the tea gathering guests similarly enjoyed the subtle, direct experience of the host's vessel arrangements. Ultimately, he concludes the event was not for academic comparison but a direct confrontation with the objects, and he looks forward to observing with a bit more distance and feeling next time.
(Source：ART iT)