Multi-talented Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto exhibits in Beijing

As the name of this exhibition Seeing Sound Hearing Time suggests, the survey offers audiences a series of unique multisensory spaces that open up and describe parts of the intangible world that were imperceptible to us before, through a blend of audio and visual languages.

For example, the work Is Your Time (2017), which is jointly created by Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani, displays a piano that was washed up on the shore after the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

The piano's journey from land to sea and back again is a reflection of the uncontrollable forces of nature and the way it shapes the environment. The artist believes that to some extent this force is also present in the instrument, and the piano has developed new tone and sound due to its exposure to nature.

One of the visitors, Rishi (alias), claims, the piano hidden in the flickering light reminds her of the classic line in the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, "there's a bonfire in the distance, burning for the long-awaited".

The audiovisual installation Life-fluid, invisible, inaudible ...(2007/2021), another work created in collaboration with Takatani, is one of the key exhibits. It's developed from deconstructing and recreating an opera named Life, which was created by Sakamoto in 1999.

By fusing technology, images and nature, it gives the audience the experience of walking through a Japanese garden, thus realizing "the intersection of sound and image".