Art Center NEW, a new art complex, opens at Shin-Takashima Station in Yokohama. Asa Ito visits and talks about its potential.

Even though no light comes in, it feels like you're outside, making it a mysterious and interesting space.

Until now, I have the impression that you have been active in residential areas and shopping districts along the Chuo Line, areas with a lived-in feel. Why did you decide to start a new facility in a place with such a completely different atmosphere?

I began to feel a strong desire to pass on my activities to the next generation. I was running Ongoing in Kichijoji on my own, and I felt it would be impossible to get the next generation to do it in the same way.

However, given the opportunity to operate a new facility in this location, I thought that by partnering with the government and businesses, we might be able to create an environment that will last into the future.

Raising second-generation leaders is difficult in many fields, but it's no different in the arts.

When I visited Vienna some time ago, I saw that art institutions receive a lot of subsidies from the government. This is an environment that they have won through the accumulation of lobbying efforts going back generations. Learning this changed my way of thinking.

I have similar thoughts about universities. When Japanese researchers talk about their universities, they tend to start with the history of the university at most. But in Western Europe, universities are rooted in the local area, so they start by talking about the history of the town. I too would like to create a university facility that is open to the town, and I am currently looking for a property.

I felt there was a limit to what could be achieved by a place being run by one strong person. At NEW, we are increasingly entrusting the planning and running of the space to young people. The bookstore and the shop were all started by young staff who wanted to do it.

Recently, I've been finding it difficult to understand what my students are thinking...

It's true that the sense of reality may be different. But somewhere I believe in it (laughs). I really feel that young people are also looking for real places where they can actually meet people.

When I went to Taiwan recently, I saw Indonesian migrant workers sitting on the floor in a large space inside Taipei Station on their days off, enjoying themselves freely as if they were at the beach. Since it was the end of Ramadan, they brought rice cookers and ate, and Taiwanese people who support the migrants also gathered.

It would be interesting if someone took over "NEW" in a good way like that, and gave rise to all sorts of different ways of spending time.