City Beautiful
都市美
Local Area Republic
地域社会共和国
The Commune of Hope 希望のコミューン
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“City Beautiful”
Founding Message
Artistic activity is not an exploration of the inner self. An artist’s activity requires the presence of others.
Artistic activity seeks the empathy of others. We see something and judge it to be beautiful. This judgment is not made internally; it harbors a hidden desire for others to share that judgment. You and I are in the same space, seeing the same thing, and equally perceiving it as beautiful. This feeling of being moved is called “empathy,” an emotion discovered by Immanuel Kant.
Who are these others?
They are the people right next to me and the people in the community I live with. Artistic activity requires the empathy of such others.
Artistic activity is an activity that enriches the everyday living spaces in which these people live. We artists can propose everyday spaces as beautiful spaces and express them in concrete terms.
Today, cities are spaces for economic activity. It is believed that they exist precisely for the sake of economic activity. Cities are places for investment, and for returning that investment several times, even several dozen times. Urban space exists for investors.
Japan’s urban space is being carved up for the benefit of stingy investors with little financial resources, who are each making small profits.
What is crucially missing from this is aesthetics. An awareness of creating beautiful urban spaces. They don’t care about such things at all. These carved-up urban spaces, where no one cares, are the spaces in which artists thrive. Artists propose beautiful urban spaces and appeal to their sympathy. Beautiful cities are cities where we live together with our neighbors. Beautiful cities are not for the private gain of the global economy, but for the people who live there.
We are publishing “City Beautiful” We would like to support those who propose beautiful urban spaces and strive to make them a reality.
Riken Yamamoto
City Beautiful 
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