Startbahn, Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative: Taihei Shii; hereinafter “Startbahn”), together with Odakyu Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President: Shigeru Suzuki; hereinafter “Odakyu Electric Railway”) and the Shimokitazawa Shopping District Federation (Chairman: Yoichiro Naganuma), will co-host the art festival “Moon Art Night Shimokitazawa 2026” from Friday, September 18 to Sunday, October 4, 2026, across the entire Shimokita area, with the “moon” as its central theme.

Now in its fifth year since its launch in 2022, the event will feature approximately 100 programs and forms of expression, including art, music, theatre, food, and workshops.

As a co-organizer of the event, Startbahn has been responsible for the overall planning, design, and curation of the art festival since its initial development. This year, outdoor works by five artists and artist groups from Japan and abroad will be presented throughout the Shimokita Senrogai area. The immersive theatre work “Nekomachi,” which was experienced by approximately 1,800 people last year, will also return with English guidance newly added. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Moon, the festival will host its first participatory choral project, inviting visitors to sing the official theme song together. A digital stamp rally using Startrail will also be held again this year.

Tickets go on sale today, Thursday, July 23.

■ Event Overview

■ About the Exhibited Works: Moon-Themed Works Scattered Throughout the City

This year, works by artists from Japan and abroad will once again be presented across the Shimokita Senrogai area. Visitors will encounter artworks as they walk through the city and enjoy the unique experience of outdoor exhibitions, where art blends into the everyday urban landscape. Planning and operation support: Island Japan Co., Ltd.

Luke Jerram, “Museum of the Moon” | Shimokita Senrogai Aki-chi

Using NASA lunar surface imagery, this spherical artwork measures approximately seven meters in diameter and has toured around the world. As the symbolic work of the festival, it reflects the many ways people have understood the moon across different eras and regions, from religious symbolism and calendars to nighttime navigation. By bringing the moon into the city, the work creates a shared moment of looking upward together.

Teppei Kaneuji, “A Thousand Faces of the Moon” | Rooftop of Higashi-Kitazawa Station, outside the ticket gates

Although there is only one moon, it can appear differently depending on the place, the person, the environment, and the timing. Based on this idea, this new installation creates many different “moons.” The work is composed through collage techniques, bringing together reflective sheets, aluminum, video, silkscreen, and other materials. Visitors can not only photograph the moon, but also take home “their own moon” through silkscreen printing. The work asks how we might enjoy the fact that a single thing can hold multiple perceptions and values.

Yuma Kishi and Tatsuya Takemori, “Botanical Intelligence: Moon Edition” | NANSEI PLUS

This installation uses small edge devices that collect biological data from nearby plants and convert it into sound and light perceivable by humans. Each device does not function in isolation, but instead forms a rhizomatic network with surrounding devices, sharing tokens with one another to generate sound and light. The work asks what a new form of commons might look like when humans share the world with non-human intelligence. This is a new edition of Parallel Forests, presented at Umi no Mori Park in Tokyo.

Artist: Yuma Kishi + Tatsuya Takemori
Concept / Direction: Yuma Kishi
Technical Direction: Tatsuya Takemori, Abstract Engine

Masahide Matsuda, “The Big Flat Now” | Parking area next to BONUS TRACK

The emoji, born from Japanese mobile phone culture in 1999, has now become a universal symbol. This work materializes the “face with tears of joy,” the world’s most used emoji over the past decade, as a balloon approximately eight meters high. A symbol that usually appears only a few millimeters tall on screen is enlarged while retaining a facial expression that contains conflicting emotions. The work reconsiders the boundaries between digital and physical, information and matter, emotion and body. Appearing in Shimokitazawa at night, it looks down over the city as a “second moon.”

Misai Kono, “AFTERGLOW - Garden of Afterglow” | Shimokitazawa Station Square

Simultaneous exhibition. Organizer: Shimokita Shopping Street Promotion Association.

This spatial work brings together a Japanese aesthetic sensibility and a cosmic sense of time through the phenomenon of phosphorescence. The moon we see from Earth is approximately 1.3 seconds in the past. Just as the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter depicts the moon as a symbol connecting another world with this one, people in Japan have long looked at the moon and projected onto its light memories of time passed and unseen presences. Phosphorescence, too, stores light once received and releases it into darkness. Visitors walk through the afterglow emitted over time.

■ Immersive Theatre “Nekomachi”: Now with English Guidance

The immersive theatre work “Nekomachi,” inspired by the representative work of modern poet Sakutaro Hagiwara and experienced by approximately 1,800 people last year, will be performed again this year. Participants wear earphones and move through the city itself, from the area in front of Shimokitazawa Station to the Setagaya-Daita area, experiencing a walking theatre work that also uses railway facilities normally inaccessible to the public as part of the stage. As they walk through the city where Hagiwara spent his later years, visitors can experience everyday scenery transforming into a dreamlike story. This year, English guidance will be newly added so that visitors from overseas can also enjoy the work.

■ First-Ever Participatory Choral Project: Singing “Moonlight” Under the Moon

On Friday, September 25, the night of the Mid-Autumn Moon, the festival will host its first participatory choral project, “Singing ‘Moonlight’ Under the Moon,” at Shimokita Senrogai Aki-chi. The official theme song “Moonlight,” written for the event by artist Manatsu Nagahara, who is active in the Shimokita area, will be sung together by local residents and visitors gathered at the venue, completing a shared work under the giant moon artwork.

■ Ticket Information

Starting today, Thursday, July 23, four ticket types will be available through the ticket sites eplus and EMot, including festival passes for viewing artworks and participating in programs across all areas, as well as experience tickets for the immersive theatre work “Nekomachi.” Tickets will also be sold on site during the event period.

What Each Ticket Includes

Artworks outside the ticketed areas can be viewed free of charge.

Elementary school children and younger may enter free of charge when accompanied by a guardian.

Only cashless payment methods will be accepted at on-site reception.

Please check the official website for the astronomical observation schedule. Some sessions may be suspended in cloudy weather or cancelled in rainy weather.

Ticket Sales Sites

eplus: https://eplus.jp/sf/word/0000171883
EMot: https://www.emot.jp/service/detail/moon-art-night-shimokitazawa.html?channel=main

■ A Digital Stamp Rally for Collecting NFTs While Exploring the City

To help visitors enjoy Moon Art Night throughout the entire city, including artworks and participating stores across Shimokitazawa, the festival will hold a digital stamp rally using Startrail. By purchasing menu items or products at participating stores and scanning the QR code displayed in-store, visitors can receive a different NFT from each store as a digital stamp. Through this program, the festival is preparing an experience that encourages visitors to explore the city while encountering Shimokitazawa’s stores and people. Details will be announced sequentially before the event, together with the list of participating stores.

■ About Startbahn, Inc.

Startbahn provides technologies needed by all people involved in art and culture around the world, aiming to realize a richer society. The company builds Startrail, a blockchain infrastructure that supports the assurance of artwork authenticity and the succession of value; Startrail TAG, an IC chip that links physical works to the blockchain; Startrail PORT, a management dashboard; and Startrail API, which enables customized use of Startrail.

Official website:

https://startbahn.io

■ About Startrail

Startrail is a blockchain infrastructure for art and culture, led by Startbahn. It aims to support the reliability and authenticity of artworks and, by extension, the succession of value. Digital certificates, NFTs, issued on Startrail can record issuer information as well as a wide range of information and data related to the value of a work, including subsequent exhibitions, transactions, repairs, and appraisals. In addition, terms set for the secondary distribution and use of works can be carried across services, enabling long-term management of artworks.

Official website:

https://startbahn.io/startrail

■ Press Contact

Startbahn, Inc.

Public Relations

pr@startbahn.jp

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