If you take a stroll around your neighborhood in Oakland, Berkeley, or San Francisco this summer, you might happen upon a Japanese Teahouse that wasn’t there before.
It’s part of a mobile art installation by Taro Hattori called Rolling Counterpoint, where he engages guests in conversation around social issues like immigration, exclusion, or homelessness — all over steaming cups of tea. . The project was developed while Hattori was in residence at the Montalvo Art Center where there’s a permanent version of the teahouse that he created.
KALW’s Jen Chien spoke with both Hattori and Montalvo Arts Center’s Associate Curator Donna Conwell about how this art installation is starting conversation.
HATTORI: I think one of the reasons I want to have conversations with people is because that's what I feel like as an immigrant, as an outsider.
Rolling Counterpoint’s mobile tea house will be at both the Asian Art Museum on June 10th andLatham Square in Oakland later on June 13th.