During NAFAS Tokyo, we invite you to discover the neighborhood, visit cultural events around the city, enjoy restaurants and bars we love …. This page will be in constant evolution, come back often to check new tips!

In her book Fade, author Ryoko Sekiguchi examines a notion that has long been associated with cuisines unfamiliar to us. She shows that when we describe a food as "bland," we reveal less about the cuisine we are judging than about the limits of our own perception. From this observation, and without lapsing into the kind of fatalism that suggests "we can never truly understand," or that such understanding is "reserved for connoisseurs," Sekiguchi offers a hopeful perspective: to truly grasp a cuisine, we must first unlearn our own culinary "grammar" and approach it with the humility, but also the optimism, of someone learning an unfamiliar language.

「多くの物事と同様に、味や料理も、一度味わっただけで判断できるものではない（……）。新しい味や調理法、それまで知らなかった味の組み合わせ等に初めて出会うと、人はいつも戸惑ってしまう。それを表現する言葉が見つからないのだ。」著書『Fade(味気ない)』の中で、作家の関口涼子は、長い間、馴染みのない料理と結びつけられてきたこの概念に注目し、ある食べ物を「味気ない」と評することが、評価対象の料理そのものについてではなく、むしろ私たち自身の限界について物語っていることを明らかにします。この事実を踏まえ、「理解できない」とか「通だけのもの」といった一種の宿命論に陥ることなく、著者は希望に満ちた展望を提示します。ある料理の本質を捉えるためには、私たち自身の食の「文法」から脱却し、未知の言語を学ぶ者の持つ謙虚さ　そして希望　を持って歩みを進める必要があるのです。

NAFAS is both exhibition and gathering. Artists from Japan and elsewhere will present new and existing works, while the festival extends beyond the gallery through community-oriented events, performances, cooking classes, film screenings, musical concerts, and conversations.