How do we relate to nature in cities increasingly covered in concrete? Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City, a group exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in Hatsudai, Tokyo, explores this question from October 17 through December 20, 2026.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

Bringing together ten artists working across contemporary art, architecture, and fashion, the exhibition reconsiders the relationships between cities and nature, and between human life and the environment, through familiar elements such as plants, soil, water, the body, and clothing.

Another Kind of Nature Within the City

Cities and nature are often described as opposites. Where buildings and roads dominate the urban landscape, nature is imagined as something that exists elsewhere. Yet a closer look at roadsides and vacant lots reveals plants taking root and living organisms coexisting with the built environment.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

At a time when human activity is profoundly reshaping the natural world, the boundary between the natural and the artificial is less clearly defined than we might once have imagined. Rather than proposing a simple return to a lost natural world, the exhibition asks how we might reconnect with nature within an environment that continues to change.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

The exhibition's title, Seeds and Roots, reflects this idea. Just as seeds carried by the wind take root in unfamiliar ground, we too continue to seek ways of living within changing environments.

Ten Artistic Practices Across Contemporary Art, Architecture, and Fashion

The exhibition features ten artists: Yuriko Asano, Rui Itasaka, Fumi Imamura, Yasutake Iwana, Mika Kato, Akane Saijo, Hatsune Suzuki, Yoko Daihara, Takeshi Yasura, and Yoshikazu Yamagata.

Although their disciplines and approaches differ, they share an interest in the relationship between human life and the natural environment.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

Their practices encompass paintings that explore plants and human activity, artistic investigations into the memories embedded in landscapes, works made with natural materials, and explorations of the relationship between the body and sculptural form. Architecture and clothing also become ways of reconsidering the environments we encounter in everyday life.

To live, to wear, to eat, to excrete.

These fundamental human activities form an important point of departure for the exhibition. By examining actions that often go unnoticed, the artists invite us to understand nature not simply as something to observe, but as an inseparable part of our own existence.

An Exhibition Space Where Works Form a Shared Landscape

Rather than presenting the ten artists' practices as entirely separate worlds, the exhibition has been conceived as a space in which their works connect and respond to one another.

Its curatorial approach draws on the idea of an urban community garden or a garden where different species of plants coexist.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

Distinct elements exist alongside one another, forming relationships and collectively shaping a shared environment. Moving through the exhibition, visitors may discover unexpected connections between works that initially appear unrelated.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

The galleries bring together two-dimensional works, sculptures, installations, and other forms of artistic expression. Differences in material and scale subtly alter the viewer's gaze and movement through the space.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

The experience is not limited to contemplating individual works. It also lies in walking through the galleries and sensing the relationships that emerge between different artistic approaches.

Considering Nature Through Fashion: Yoshikazu Yamagata

Among the participating artists is Yoshikazu Yamagata, designer of the fashion label writtenafterwards and founder of the fashion school coconogacco.

Known for his narrative-driven approach inspired by mythology and storytelling, Yamagata has also explored the memories and passage of time embedded in clothing, as well as fashion's potential for regeneration and circularity, through the reconstruction of vintage garments and biodegradable natural materials.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

For this exhibition, Yamagata presents a new installation connected to Where the story ends – Even After, Ever Onward –, currently on view at the inaugural Maebashi Biennale 2026.

Clothed figures and an assortment of sculptural forms appear to form a procession. Extending beyond the gallery into the surrounding spaces, the installation evokes a continuing narrative that travels from Maebashi to Tokyo.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

Clothing is an intimate part of everyday life, covering and protecting the body. At the same time, it is part of a cycle in which materials are sourced and processed, garments are worn, and eventually passed on or discarded.

Through his longstanding exploration of the relationship between individuals and society through fashion, Yamagata offers another perspective on the exhibition's central theme: the everyday act of wearing.

Rediscovering Our Connections with Nature in Everyday Life

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery has long presented exhibitions spanning contemporary art, architecture, fashion, and other creative disciplines.

Building on this interdisciplinary approach, Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City offers an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between humanity and the natural world.

The exhibition also includes a program of artist talks, performances, and gallery talks led by the curatorial team.

Installation view of Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City. Photo © FASHION HEADLINE

Finding nature within the city does not necessarily mean escaping to a distant forest or mountain. The clothes we wear, the buildings we inhabit, the food we eat, and the soil beneath our feet all connect our daily lives to the natural world in different ways.

Through the distinct perspectives of contemporary art, architecture, and fashion, Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City invites us to reconsider our connections with nature, already woven into the fabric of everyday life.