A pocket park comes to life
in a window display

Tadashi Kawamata, Artist

©SATOSHI ASAKAWA / COURTESY OF HERMÈS JAPON

The window display I created for Ginza Maison Hermès was on display between November 2021 and February 2022. I built treehouses and nests from raw lumber and installed them in small trees, laid fallen leaves on the floor, and placed trees even outside the windows. These elements came together to create the illusion that you are stepping out from between the bare trees of a deepening autumn to enter the store. I’m told that no Hermès display had ever extended beyond the windows in this way.

We have a word in Japanese, Gin-bura, which means “strolling in Ginza”. The very existence of this word proves that Ginza is a pleasant neighbourhood in which to stroll around without a destination in mind, with its tree-lined avenues and small parks tucked away between tall buildings. This installation came out of the idea that it would be nice to turn the store into a forested pocket park that blurs the boundaries between street and store, making passers-by want to drop in. Some people might find it daunting to step into a luxury shop like Hermès, so I wanted to contrive a way to get people to casually wander inside while strolling through the neighbourhood.

Ginza at midnight—
an illuminated, poetic world

When we installed the window display, late at night after the store had closed, I found it fascinating to saunter around Ginza in the dead of night. All sorts of people were moving about despite the late hour—construction workers, cab drivers, retail workers heading home after closing or arriving early in the morning to prepare the store before it opens. In the darkness of night, a window display shining brilliantly on a street corner envelops you in a romantic ambiance, offering you a glimpse into another world.

The store’s location near Sukiyabashi Crossing also gives it the impression of a nexus that ties together the entire Ginza district. For many people, the crossing is where they embark on Gin-bura, or what the French might call flânerie. And a window display—not only mine, but those created by all sorts of different people—can sometimes have the power to transport a flâneur into a strange, uncharted land.

Tadashi Kawamata

Kawamata, an artist, has lived in Paris since 2007. He is known for creating large-scale installations, many of them in situ artworks built out of wood, and has participated in numerous international exhibitions of contemporary art. He is also the artist behind the window display at Ginza Maison Hermès over the winter of 2021–2022.