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| ADVERTORIAL |
Design Festa Gallery, Harajuku, was founded on the same philosophy as Design Festa. Design Festa is the longest-running and largest original art festival in Asia, held twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight. With no censorship or restrictions, Design Festa Gallery offers a wholly unique opportunity found nowhere else in Japan: the chance for anyone and everyone to exhibit and sell original work.
In support of Design Festa's philosophy of freedom of expression, Design Festa Gallery first opened in 1998 as a reformed former guesthouse in the kawaii capital of Tokyo, Harajuku. The building was wholly transformed into an artistic hotspot where professionals and amateur artists, students and visitors alike can interact seven days a week. The gallery offers aspiring artists one of the lowest cost exhibition opportunities in Japan, is admission-free for visitors and censorship-free for all throughout both of its West and East buildings.
Consisting of 21 show rooms and 27 different exhibition spaces that can be rented for 540 yen a day, there is a space within Design Festa Gallery to suit every variation of theme and budget.
Everywhere from the gallery's outside walls and staircases to its restrooms can be transformed into display locations featuring artist work and creations, with ample space provided by the ever-evolving organisms that are Design Festa Gallery's showrooms, changing on a monthly, weekly and daily basis.
To encourage the concept of creative freedom, the only rule for exhibiting at Design Festa Gallery is that all work must be original.
Regardless of your preferred form of expression, any form of art is welcome to be displayed and sold with 100% of all profits going directly to the artists.
The venue welcomes both established companies and inexperienced amateurs, featuring exhibitions by artists of all ages. Such a unique combination of creators from all areas in the professional and amateur art world guarantees something for absolutely every visitor. Nowhere else can artists and aficionados of all interests and subcultures come together to freely express, enjoy and connect but here at Design Festa Gallery.
Found directly between the East and West Buildings of Design Festa Gallery is Sakura Tei Restaurant, one of the top okonomiyaki restaurants in Tokyo for diners seeking an eclectic, memorable and altogether incomparable dining experience.
With a maximum capacity of 170 guests, Sakura Tei features the fascinating traditional Japanese cuisine that is okonomoyaki and provides a one-of-a-kind, wild and artistic atmosphere. Different domestic and overseas artists have illustrated every room - and, in several cases, individual walls of the larger dining spaces - of the sprawling, two-story restaurant in collaboration with Design Festa Gallery.
Sakura Tei's menu offerings are as unique as their dining rooms, with countless original creations inspired by the ideas of diners from overseas that you will be hard pressed to find elsewhere in Tokyo or anywhere else in the world, as well as menus and cooking instructions in English, Chinese and Japanese.
Okonimiyaki is a dish prepared on an open grill in the center of every table, providing both a meal and an exciting experience for individuals as well as groups of family members and friends.
Located in between Sakura Tei Restaurant and the West Building of Design Festa Gallery is Design Festa Gallery Café and Bar, an outdoor café with a relaxed, casual and artistic atmosphere.
Similar to Sakura Tei Restaurant, every surface that greets the eye is covered in the illustrations of a multitude of artists, with drinks served in original mugs by Design Festa Gallery ceramic crafters.
On the café's open deck are three mature pomegranate trees that are covered in blooming flowers throughout the summer, turning the wooden deck underfoot a brilliant, beautiful red in a combination of art and nature that wholly transports you from the hustle and bustle of Harajuku as a true artistic oasis.
Design Festa Gallery Café and Bar also provides an English-language menu, as well as international menu items like World Beers, World Snacks and World Teas served by English-speaking staff.
International Art Event Design Festa & GAKUTEN
Founded in 1994 and continuing strong for 20 years, International Art Event Design Festa is the largest original art and performance event in Asia. A biannual, two-day extravaganza of art, music, performance, food and self-expression, Design Festa is where artists from all genres and all ages from all over the world gather to put their work and performances on display. There is nothing anywhere else on earth quite like the chaos of over 50,000 visitors and 10,000 artists joining together at International Art Event Design Festa.
The main event offered by this weekend-long interactive experience is the over 3,400 strong Booth Area. Countless original paintings, photographs, fashion design, accessories and more are on display and for sale directly from their creators, surrounded by painters and illustrators working together on one-of-a-kind works of art before your eyes, in real time, on huge live painting canvases. To the delight of children and adults alike the event also features a Workshop Area, where visitors themselves become the artists.
Throughout the entire two-day festival a collection of nonstop fashion shows, dances and performances are on display at the event's Show Stage, the surging energy of twenty original live bands spanning all musical genres can be enjoyed at the Outdoor Live Music Stage, short films, music videos, live performances and even more can be seen in the dark halls of the Theater Space and the event's International Food Court provides mouth-watering international cuisine.
In August of 2014 Design Festa celebrated its 20th anniversary with the founding of a brand new art event: All Student Art Event GAKUTEN. The midsummer Design Festa, GAKUTEN provides the rare, once-a-year opportunity for students from all over the world to leave their familiar school settings and present their work directly to the general public.
Similar to Design Festa, artists are encouraged to create and exhibit in an atmosphere free from censorship or restriction of any kind. Any individual pursuing any field of study, from elementary school students to adults furthering their education are welcome to join us at All Student Art Festival GAKUTEN.
