teamLab: A Forest Where Gods Live Event 2025

Event date:
July 18, 2025 at 3:51 am
Event end:
November 3, 2025 at 3:52 am

The 500,000 square meter Mifuneyama Rakuen Park was created in 1845, during the end of the Edo period. Sitting on the borderline of the park is the famous 3,000-year-old sacred Okusu tree of Takeo Shrine. Also in the heart of the garden is another 300-year-old sacred tree. Knowing the significance of this, our forebears turned a portion of this forest into a garden, utilizing the trees of the natural forest. The border between the garden and the wild forest is ambiguous, and when wandering through the garden, before they know it, people will find themselves entering the woods and animal trails. Enshrined in the forest is the Inari Daimyojin deity surrounded by a collection of boulders almost supernatural in their formation. 1,300 years ago, the famous priest Gyoki came to Mifuneyama and carved 500 Arhats. Within the forest caves there are Buddha Figures that Gyoki carved directly into the rock face that still remain today.

The forest, rocks, and caves of Mifuneyama Rakuen have formed over a long time, and people in every age have sought meaning in them over the millennia. The park that we know today sits on top of this history. It is the ongoing relationship between nature and humans that has made the border between the forest and garden ambiguous, keeping this cultural heritage beautiful and pleasing.

Lost in nature, where the boundaries between man-made garden and forest are unclear, we are able to feel like we exist in a continuous, borderless relationship between nature and humans. It is for this reason that teamLab decided to create an exhibition in this vast, labyrinthine space, so that people will become lost and immersed in the exhibition and in nature.

We exist as a part of an eternal continuity of life and death, a process which has been continuing for an overwhelmingly long time. It is hard for us, however, to sense this in our everyday lives, perhaps because humans cannot easily conceptualize time for periods longer than their own lives. In other words, we can understand that the world of today is a continuation of the same world from yesterday, but we feel that the worlds from more distant ages, like the Edo Period, are different and non-continuous. There is a boundary in our understanding of the continuity of long periods of time.

When exploring the forest and seeing the forms and textures of megaliths and caves that formed over eons, we recognize that this long period of time continued until today. The existence of these forms can transcend the boundaries of our understanding of the eternal continuity of life.

teamLab’s project, Digitized Nature, explores how nature can become art. The concept of the project is that non-material digital technology can turn nature into art without harming it.

The artworks explore how the existence of these forms can be used as they are to create a place where we can transcend the boundary in our understanding of the continuity of time and feel the long, long continuity of life. Using these existences that embody long periods of time as they are, we can experiment with expressing this eternal continuous life even today and continue to accumulate meaning in this place.

Visit Us

Before You Visit

The venue is dark and has many rough roads. Wear comfortable shoes such as sneakers.
To avoid mosquito bites, wear long sleeves and long pants to avoid skin exposure, and use insect repellent.
The park is huge. Give yourself enough time to explore.

Venue Map Mifuneyama Rakuen Hotel
(52M8+2G Takeo, Saga, Japan)

Excavated Path Leading to the Ancient Sacred Tree
Can be seen during the daytime.
Available time (30 minutes one way):

Jul 18 – Sep 07: 8:00 – 17:00
Sep 08 – Oct 05: 8:00 – 16:00
Oct 06 – Nov 03: 8:00 – 15:00
*To experience this artwork, a ticket for teamLab: A Forest Where Gods Live is required

Venue Details

teamLab: A Forest Where Gods Live
Term
Jul 18 – Nov 03, 2025

Hours

Jul 18 – Sep 07: 19:00 – 22:30
Sep 08 – Oct 05: 18:00 – 22:30
Oct 06 – Nov 03: 17:00 – 22:30
Enter through Entrance 1. Entrance 2 is also available 1 hour after the exhibition opens.
Last entry 22:00
teamLab Exhibition & Daytime “Rakan Bath” Combo Ticket holders may view the indoor artworks from 11:00.

Indoor Artworks: