Interactive Art! TeamLab’s Animal-Themed Exhibition in Harajuku

Galaxy and teamLab - a Match Made in Digital Heaven

For a limited time teamLab will be collaborating with Galaxy Harajuku in a new immersive art experience, Catching and Collecting in the Sacred Forest.

Located in Tokyo’s trendy and colorful Harajuku district, the world’s largest Galaxy store recently celebrated its third anniversary in March. Since opening its doors in 2019, the center has aimed to offer visitors a vision of the future, via technology.

World-renowned art collective teamLab has strived to create interactive art exhibits that immerse visitors within a whole new reality, creating experiences that blur the boundaries between the physical and the digital,

This innovative new exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to ‘capture’ the animals living in a stunning digital forest via a Galaxy smartphone.

Entering teamLab's Colorful World

Once inside, visitors will find themselves immersed within an entirely new world, created in teamLab’s distinctive colorful flair.

Within this forest lives a variety of fascinating creatures, both endangered and already extinct. If visitors touch or interact with the animals, they will respond by turning or running away.

Capturing them will allow the user to read information on this animal, as well as save it to a digital ‘picture book’. The more times the same animal is captured, the more detailed the information becomes.

Animals can be captured via two methods: shooting an ‘observation arrow’ at the creature, and casting an ‘observation net’. When a net is laid down at the user’s feet, they then must use their own bodies to physically ‘herd’ the animal into the net; a detail that makes the experience even more immersive.

Once captured, the animal disappears from the environment and enters the user’s device. If users swipe their phones at the location where the animal was caught, the creature can be released into the forest once more.

The concept behind the exhibition is capture, research, release.

How to Book

The experience is entirely free, and tickets can be reserved online. Each reservation slot is for one hour and the number of entrants is limited so that the space does not become too crowded.

The exhibition opened on April 1 and the closing date has yet to be announced.

Venue: Galaxy Harajuku (Tokyo, Shibuya, Jingumae 1-8-9)
Access: 5-minute walk from Harajuku Station (on the JR Yamanote Line)
Period: April 1, 2022 onwards (end date TBA)
Hours: 11:00 - 19:00 (last entry 18:30)
Admission: Free admission
Website: https://www.teamlab.art/e/collecting_sacredforest/

Written by Kat