CHA_DO also known as CHA NO YU: Tea Ceremony is a Japanese traditional cultural icon with a long and complex history that is often reduced to a stereotype.  Tenshin Okakura translated the term as “Japanese Tea Ceremony” to the Western world in the early 20^th century. However, although it emphasizes silence and involves many detailed manners and styles, its essence is more simply about gathering and sharing time and space together while having tea.

Despite this simplicity, there are innumerable detailed preparations to be made before making a bowl of tea. The host devotes his or her attention to making a cohesive whole of these many elements to entertain the guest’s eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and hands. Each ceremony is customized according to guests, season, and theme of the party. One can say that the role of the host is much like that of the curator.

As a life-long student of the tea ceremony and a professional curator, Machiko Harada will introduce the beauty and fascination of the tea ceremony and share her study of its influence on contemporary art and cultures. She will examine how these practices share in their approach to finding common ground beyond different times and cultural boundaries.

Machiko Harada is an independent curator based in NY. She studied Art History and Aesthetics in Kanazawa, Japan, and Fine Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden, and did advanced curatorial studies at CCA Kitakyushu, and curatorial training at Stichting De Appel in Amsterdam.  She was the vice director for art residency programs at Kanazawa College of Art, and the contemporary arts curator at Akiyoshidai International Art Village, where she established the basic format of their residential programming. Most recently She was working for Aichi Triennale 2013 as an assistant curator. And currently an independent curator in New York City working for Kurumaya museum of Art as a guest curator in 2014.

Language English