Shanghai
Designed by renowned Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima, Counter Sky Garden is an installation artwork on the fourth-floor rooftop of Fosun Foundation (Shanghai).
The work comprises 300 LED light numbers counting down from nine to one at fixed speeds-some fast, some slow. The blinking numbers symbolize how different individuals have different personalities, radiating with the light of these many lives. The five different colors reflect different races and cultures.
The artist personally selected 300 Shanghai residents to choose the speed at which each numbered light would count down, a direct representation of how art is rooted in life. Counter Sky Garden also serves as a platform through which Shanghai residents reveal what it means for different lives to coexist.
Sculptor, Installation Artist
Tatsuo Miyajima was born in 1957 in Edogawa, Tokyo. Raised in the most bustling and culturally metropolitan area of Japan, Miyajima creates artworks that contemplate humanism and the urban landscape. His works often employ light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a medium to explore dislocations in time and space. In 1987, Miyajima created his first LED piece. The following year, at the Venice Biennale, he exhibited his work Sea of Time in the young artists section to great international acclaim. Since then, he has become one of the leading figures among the post-Mono-ha artists.
The LED numbers of Counter Sky Garden count either from nine to one or vice versa at fixed speeds—some fast, some slow. The blinking numbers symbolize how different individuals have different personalities, radiating with the light of these many lives. The five different colors reflect different races and cultures. However, these differences come together here to evince a beautiful sense of harmony. This harmony reflects the promise of international metropolitanism, a quality that has always been one of Shanghai’s unique features.
Counter Sky Garden invites Shanghai residents from around the world to set the speed of the LED countdowns based on their own preferences. In this way, the participants encounter one another within this sky garden, which ultimately serves to document what it means for different lives to coexist.
