The title ‘Blossoms’ originates from the Japanese term ‘Sakura’ (cherry blossoms), which also refers to an engaged and pretend audience. This term was originally used in Kabuki theater during the Edo period, where individuals were hired by the playhouse to enhance the performance by cheering and creating an optimal audience experience.

In this durational performative installation, Koetting will collaborate with local performers, as well as with Lisbon-based curator and writer Filipa da Rocha Nunes, to create an ever-morphing  performative landscape. This work reflects the artist’s ongoing research on contemporary PR, cloud management strategies, and the history of audience development in Art Institutions.

The project unfolds the unique interplay between the embodied self and the environment within a data-saturated society, where all things are harnessed for promotional and symbolic purposes, translating the essence of our physicality in a world shaped by endless commodification. At the same time, the project cheers and flourishes the emergence of new communalities centred in the new CAM building and the possibilities proposed by its architecture.

Engawa – A Season of Contemporary Art from Japan

‘Engawa’ is a programming that brings to Lisbon a set of creators from Japan and the Japanese diaspora, many of them for the first time in Portugal. More info