Over the course of 32 days, nearly 6,000 visitors (including repeat visitors) came to see the prelude exhibition for Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015. This is the only exhibition that we will be presenting in advance of the international exhibition. Though the full running time of the work is 30 minutes, most audience members spent at least an hour in the installation, enjoying the work for two or three runs or more. Many visitors learned about the exhibition through recommendations from their friends and acquaintances, and there were also many who made repeat visits to see the work on two or more occasions during the exhibition period. The sheer power of the work itself was made very clear through the overwhelmingly positive reaction of our visitors, including active discussions about the work online.
The most in-depth discussion of the work was a lecture by William Kentridge himself on February 22. Using actual video clips that were made in the process of creating The Refusal of Time, Kentridge masterfully delivered or, rather, almost performed a lecture that reminds us that he studied acting in his youth. There were significantly more audience members present for the lecture than expected: The audience of nearly six hundred people filled all available seats on both floors, leaving many standing in the back of the theater. In spite of the less than optimal conditions, few complaints were heard thanks to the quality of the lecture itself. This day also marked the second largest number of visitors to the prelude exhibition in a single day, after the final day of the exhibition period.
Parasophia’s Public Program was also introduced for the first time. Based on this prelude exhibition, we held orientations and meetings for volunteers; five Access Program lectures; two Teachers’ Program meetings that were attended by twelve teachers; a School Program for ten schools—middle schools, high schools, and a children’s center—in Kyoto Prefecture and Nara Prefecture; and a Family Program with five participating families. The Access Program lectures by lecturers with completely different backgrounds each filled up very quickly, indicating the high level of interest held by audiences from different fields.
Three key members of The Refusal of Time’s creative/technical team, Gavan Eckhart (sound design and mix), Jonas Lundquist (‘Elephant’), and Sabine Theunissen (installation design) came to Kyoto for the installation process. Three students from Doshisha University, the Kyoto University of Art and Design, and Ritsumeikan University acted as their assistants. The operation of our prelude exhibition and Public Program would not have been possible without the support of our 37 volunteers. Four students from Doshisha University helped as ushers during Kentridge’s lecture at Ponto-cho Kaburenjo Theater. Last but not least, the installation and removal of the exhibition, as well as the various events held during the exhibition period were documented through video and photography with the help of eight students from Kyoto Seika University and the Kyoto University of Art and Design. A selection of the photographs taken during the installation process were posted on Facebook and Google+.

(Photos by Kunihiro Shikata)

Prelude [Exhibition] William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time
Dates: Saturday, February 8 – Sunday, March 16, 2014
Venue: Auditorium, former Rissei Elementary School
Presented by the Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture Organizing Committee, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives (Kyoto Keizai Doyukai), Kyoto Prefecture, and Kyoto City
Under the auspices of Inamori Foundation and The Japan Foundation
From the collection of Ishikawa Collection (Okayama)
With the cooperation of Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto University of Art and Design
Funded in part by a grant from Nomura Foundation
Approved by the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, Japan

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Related event: Lecture by William Kentridge
William Kentridge “Escaping One’s Fate: Commenting on The Refusal of Time”
Lecturer: William Kentridge
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2014  1:00–3:00 PM
Venue: Ponto-chō Kaburenjō Theater

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Prelude: Access Program

Feb. 15: Prelude: Access Program [History of Cinematography] Kiyotaka Moriwaki “Cinema in Kyoto: When Art and Entertainment Were Closely Intertwined”
Feb. 16: Open Research Program 06/Prelude: Access Program [Narrative Generation] Toh EnJoe “For The Refusal of Time”
March 1: Prelude: Access Program [Social Philosophy] Masaki Nakamasa “Philosophical Consideration on the ‘Time of Art’: Implications of ‘Time Experience’ in the Discourses of Heidegger, Benjamin, and Other German Thinkers”
March 8: Prelude: Access Program [Science/Physics] Humitaka Sato “Making the Time”
March 9: Prelude: Access Program [Aesthetics & Theory of Arts] Hiroshi Yoshioka “Disassembling the Time Machine: Spatialized Time or Time as a Machine”