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The Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda as well as the Estonian partners and the Tartu 2024 team agree that Ikeda’s residency in Estonia in November 2023 was a great success.

Face-to-face meetings with the Estonian partners – with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) and with the scientists working at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Genomics – play a pivotal role in the development of the two new artworks Ikeda will create: an audiovisual installation based on and inspired by the scientific data, and a sound installation created in collaboration with the EPCC. These artworks will be part of Ikeda’s solo exhibition at the Estonian National Museum that is open from 1 November 2024 until 2 March 2025. Ikeda’s solo exhibition is one of the highlights of the main programme of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024.

It was wonderful that the EPCC offered to hold the meeting with Ikeda in Tallinn in their rehearsal room and that the conductor Tõnu Kaljuste could attend. During the meeting, Ikeda made a presentation about himself as an artist and spoke about his motivation and concept of the project. This was followed by a fruitful discussion and exchange of ideas. As presented by Ikeda, the key idea for creating the sound installation is to use the vowels of Estonian as sound for musical composition. The EPCC agreed to record each of the 9 vowels in Estonian (a, e, i, o, u, õ, ä, ö, ü) separately, both with female and male voices, and send the recordings to Ikeda. During the meeting, it became clear that in addition to email exchange and online meetings that will take place as part of the activities leading up to Ikeda’s exhibition, it is necessary to organize a physical meeting between Ikeda and Tõnu Kaljuste together with the singers of the EPCC very soon in order to do a workshop. Because of the extremely tight schedule of the participants, the workshop cannot take place before mid-March. The exact date has now also been agreed upon between the parties.

The Tartu 2024 team is especially proud that Prof. Kristiina Tambets, Vice Director of the Institute of Genomics, Head of the Estonian Biocentre, Professor of Archaeogenomics, and several other scientists could find the time in their extremely busy schedule for the meeting with Ikeda. It was Ikeda’s wish that one of the scientists who has to be present during the visit to the Institute of Genomics is Prof. Kristiina Tambets. Ikeda and Prof. Tambets met for the first time in June 2022 during Ikeda’s previous visit to Tartu. Ikeda felt a good connection namely with Prof. Tambets and once the Tartu 2024 team contacted Prof. Tambets to check her availability, Prof. Tambets expressed that she is flattered and more than willing to make time in her schedule for a day-long meeting with Ikeda. The other scientists who participated in the meeting are as follows: Dr. Alena Kushniarevich, Dr. Lehti Saag, Dr. Monika Karmin, and Dr. Erik Abner. All the scientists made thorough and thought-provoking presentations and introduced the research they are conducting. Such in-depth presentations as well as Ikeda’s physical presence at the R&D institution is the prerequisite to understand the volume, scope, and essence of the data collected and available at the Institute of Genomics. Ikeda also introduced the concept of the audiovisual installation, and the scientists were very impressed and excited to be able to make their contribution. The next step is that the scientists discuss within their team which datasets would be the most suitable ones and will then contact Ikeda and share the relevant materials with him. As Prof. Tambets said at the end of the meeting, then Ikeda is always welcome to visit the Institute of Genomics when in Tartu and the scientists are also ready to meet via online channels.

Ikeda luckily also had enough time to visit the venue for the exhibition, the Estonian National Museum. Although Ikeda had been to the Museum before, all the plans and ideas regarding the exhibition have become more specific as time has gone by and it was thus a good opportunity for the people working at the Museum and for the members of the Tartu 2024 team to go through the relevant aspects with the artist himself. It was agreed that Ikeda will give one artist talk and one interview, and the Tartu 2024 team considers this a great achievement. The meeting at the Museum was also necessary to understand what other details definitely need to be fixed, e.g., certain clarifications concerning the equipment in the technical rider. In collaboration with the Museum and Ikeda’s team, Tartu 2024 will also move forward with the communications and marketing strategy for the exhibition.

The Tartu 2024 team is pleased with the outcomes of Ikeda’s residency in Estonia in November 2023: the fact that both the EPCC and the scientists working at the Institute of Genomics were willing to have such thorough and long meetings clearly shows their interest and wish to contribute. That, of course, makes sense, since Ryoji Ikeda is one of Japan’s leading visual artists and composers who has gained worldwide acclaim, and it is a privilege to collaborate with Ikeda.