Central East Tokyo Art Festival 2009
09.07.17
CET (Central East Tokyo) is an art, design and architecture festival that has started in 2003.
The special point about this festival is, that it is NOT held in the main and fashionable areas of Central Tokyo, such as Shibuya, Omotesando, Aoyama or Harajuku!
It is held in the hidden small streets of Eastern Tokyo, areas that are quite never mentioned in travel guides called Kanda, Bakurocho, Asakusa-Bashi and Nihonbashi. There where old warehouses, old companies buildings have closed thier doors more than a decade ago. These old, almost forgotten buildings were even not worth it to take them down… rumours were heard that the landlords leave the area until everything get’s destroyed by the next big earthquake!
“Carpe Diem” might have been the right motto for young architects, gallerists and designers, who started to set up their office spaces in these buildings, with a slightly rotten look from all the rainy seasons that soiled the storefronts. The rent is economically and the noise, pollution and hot air zones don’t bother as much as in the central areas of this loved megacity.
This group of Central East Tokyo developers started the CET art and design festival in 2003 and it has continued every year since then. The changes of the area are remarkable: new galleries and cafe’s stand out in and beside old buildings. Windows of new office spaces are alight till late night. (Certainly the Japanese workaholic philosophy doesn’t stop here neither…)
This year, on July 19th from 11am to midnight, CET will discuss how this area will become in the future and what will be the role of art and the creative scene. A Tokyo ART POINT PLAN will be introduced, offices are open for the public, walks with a real estate, talks, lectures and parties are held.
The OnEdrop Cafe opens a party from 15pm – 2am.
(The concept of the cafe is (fortunately or unfortunately) not “On-E-Drops” due to the chic capitalisation as some people might believe… One Drop is meant as a metaphor for: as one drop of water can stimulate the surface of a lake, so can the ideas of a small group of people force a whole movement.)
OnEdrop Cafe
Tokyo, Chiyoda-ku, Iwamotmachi 2-9-11
Hiromei Building 1F
Phone: 03-5829-6822
All infos about the festival in Japanese only at