About this project

To support farms and fisheries across Japan, the art and food collective OPENrestaurant (openrestaurant.org) will be traveling to Japan during rice harvest season, visiting farmers, artists, fishermen, cooks, and designers. Together with Tokyo-based Food Light Project, OPEN will organize a participatory 
edible installation, OPENharvest, in Tokyo at the end of October.

OPENharvest will be an opportunity to tell the story of some of the great food producing communities throughout Japan, document visits to these producers, and to think critically about food production in the Japan. OPEN hopes to bring a bit of the country into the city by bringing farmers and fishermen into Tokyo to gather with and meet the people who eat the vegetables, meats, and fish 
they produce.




Proceeds from OPENharvest events will benefit several food producing communities affected 
by the earthquake. Food comes from the earth; food sustains people; and people 
make society. With this universal idea in mind, we hope to imagine the future of
 food in Japan from a new more cooperative perspective.



OPENharvest will be held with California and Japanese chefs and artists all working together and exchanging ideas, to celebrate Japan’s food and food artisans. In the weeks prior to the event, the OPEN team will visit fishermen, farmers, producers and wild food foragers. These visits will be documented with video, interviews, and photography and these images and stories will be will be shared at the event.

The collected content of this trip will be turned into a magazine that is printed with English and Japanese side by side, so it can be shared between countries. The culminating magazine hopes to provide a sense of openness to the dialogue about where food comes from in Japan and in a larger way, celebrate what is working well in food production.



The food producers will be invited to join the celebration and meet face to face 
with guests. Many of the collaborative projects between California and Japanese
 artists are still developing. However, the event will be based on three themes.

THEME #1: DiSCOVER OKOME



Okome (rice), is an essential Japanese ingredient, but few know how it is cultivated
and processed. Focusing on this basic ingredient, we will consider the past
 and future of Japanese society. We will offer workshops on rice polishing, washing and cooking in a traditional iron kama.
Guests will then learn how to make “mother’s” onigiri, seasoned only with salt.

THEME #2: NIPPON GIBIER

Throughout Japan, more than 450,000 wild deer and boar are exterminated each
year for the damage they cause to rice field and other crops. However, only 10%
 of this wild food is eaten. With the performance of Nippon Gibier, chefs from
 OPEN and chef Fujiki will spit roast several whole wild boar over charcoal. A demonstration of the butchering of a whole deer will be accompanied by a video of
the deconstruction of a whole maguro drawing acomparison between two wild foods. We also hope to play a video of the hunt and capture of the very same wild deer and boar on a large screen.

Theme #3: MATSURI



“Matsuri" (festival) exist in various forms throughout Japan. However, the festival of thanks to nature’s spirits for the life they bring are common at harvest time in the fall. Together with farmers, chefs, artists and the participants, we will explore the future of food in the society through this giving of thanks. In partnership with YATAI TRIP, our matsuri will feature a number of yatai, serving simple vegetable and fish dishes. Music will be performed by Yatai Trip, and a Food Light Project movie by Naoki Ito will be shown.

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ABOUT OPEN

The OPEN art and food collective was started by Chez Panisse chefs and artists and like-minded food professionals in California. OPEN shares the values of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, CA, which has lead a revolution in food in America, encouraging people to think seriously about what they eat, to learn where and how it is grown, and to support nearby small scale food producers who offer an alternative to industrial agriculture. This idea of transparency-- of the traceability of food-- and the essential relationship between the farmer and the eater is the basic premise of OPEN.

OPEN has organized several large-scale art and food events at museums and galleries throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, each exploring a theme: OPENsoil, OPENwater, OPENfuture, and most recently, OPENeducation.

http://openrestaurant.org/