As a part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture (LFA) the Embassy of Japan is presenting an exhibition entitled YATAI HERE YATAI THERE. The exhibition is a part of the International Architecture and Design Showcase, which is held in collaboration with the biennial LFA and the British Council, and created especially with this year’s festival theme, the Playful City, in mind. In 2010, during the previous festival, the Embassy of Japan was very proud to receive the award for best exhibition in the International Showcase. Hopes are high again this year but with a very different project.

YATAI are Japanese mobile street stalls which sell merchandise in cities. This exhibition tells the stories of the journeys of a number of ‘mobile play-station’ yatai.

In YATAI HERE YATAI THERE (YHYT), specially constructed yatai, purpose-built for recreation, are used as vehicles for seeing the city through the medium of play. These yatai have travelled around London and to Miyagi in Japan offering activities to young people on their way. Each yatai has returned to the exhibition, bringing back with it records of particular events and stories from its travels, which unfold as a series of moving images, and traces made by the participants themselves. Through a family of yatai, the project creates playful links between local communities over 9000 km apart.

JICC