Ringo Meets Art

The apple has a long history as a motif in western art. As a symbol of fertility and the fragility of life, the apple is depicted as the forbidden fruit in the Bible.


Hirosaki is known as the city of apples, and is the largest apple producer in Japan.
Apple culture in Hirosaki is said to have originated when American missionaries shared apples with their interns and congregations, and began apple cultivation in the area at the same time. Apple trees here bore three fruit for the first time in 1877.


A brickwork brewery was built about 100 years ago at the site of the orchard, and it started producing Japan's first ever apple cidre after WWII. It ceased brewing activities following a relocation in 1965, and it was renovated from the brick warehouse into an art museum in 2020 based on the concept "Continuous Memories."


Apples have brought many industrial and cultural benefits to Hirosaki. However, due to rapid changes in the natural and social environment in recent years, changes have also emerged among the people, town, and efforts that are involved with apples.


In this project, we will create multiple hands-on programs based on the concepts of art, cidre, and Hirosaki, with a focus on the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art which engages in creative efforts in this land of apples.


We hope that these programs will deliver you the singular pleasure of art and alcohol and help you think about the local community.

Movie

Tourism

Tours

This project features special hands-on activities in art, food, and craft cidre, all situated in and around
the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art.

meets Art

Night museum guided tours

The museum curator gives
special guided tours through the museum
at night after hours

meets Campanilismo

Special dinners using local ingredients

Special dinners prepared
by chef Michiaki Sasamori
from the Italian restaurant
Osteria Enoteca da Sasino in Hirosaki

meets Cidre

Craft cidre

Tours of Hirosaki craft cidre mills
with cidre ambassadors

meets Cidre Tasting

Enjoy different craft cidres

Sample craft cidres
from different mills.

meets Art Performance

Apple Phone headphones

This audio installation lets you hear the sound of an apple tree based on its biopotential signals. Just take the apples on the tree and place them on your ears like headphones.

Chef

Michiaki Sasamori

News

Latest updates

2022.03.25
Ringo meets Art website launched

The Collection

The apple and the Hirosaki Museum
of Contemporary Art

The Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art is also known as the birthplace of cidre in Japan. This location was an apple orchard before the current building was constructed 100 years ago.

The museum's collection features site-specific artworks that incorporate local culture and blend with the architecture of the brickwork warehouse.

Jean-Michel OTHONIEL

The Knot of Eden

Cerith WYN EVANS

Drawing in Light (and Time)
...suspended

Cidre

A brewed alcoholic drink
made only with apples

Travel conditions

To join and apply for the activities

coming soon

meets Art

Night museum guided tours

The museum curator gives special guided tours through the museum at night after hours. Based on the concept "Continuous Memories," this tour looks at why the brickwork warehouse built as a brewery a century ago was later reborn as an art museum, and it features more information about exhibitions and artworks than you can view usually. These tours let you leisurely enjoy the artwork without the crowds.

Learn more about our exhibitions

meets Campanilismo

Special dinners using local ingredients

These dinners are served at the museum's café and restaurant BRICK by chef Michiaki Sasamori from Osteria Enoteca da Sasino, an Italian restaurant in Hirosaki. Sasamori uses Aomori-grown ingredients, and he even grows vegetables himself. He makes his own coppa, salami, uncured ham and cheeses, and serves them all with campanilismo—love for the community. Enjoy home-made apple wine, as well as wine made with grapes grown by the chef.

Find out more about chef Michiaki Sasamori

Tours of Hirosaki craft cidre mills with cidre ambassadors

Hirosaki is the largest producer of apples in Japan.
Discover the history and philosophy of the craft cidre mills that have surged in popularity, as well as of the ever-familiar apple

Japanese cidre originated in Hirosaki. The Hirosaki House Wine and Cidre District was officially recognized in 2014, and craft cidres brewed by apple farms have gained popularity ever since.
These tours take you through cidre mills surrounded by apple orchards in Hirosaki, letting you hear stories about apple farming and learn about how each mill began cidre production.

Cidre mill kimori

Satoshi Takahashi

Takahashi was born in 1973 in Hirosaki, Aomori. After graduating from high school, he studied filmmaking at the Japan Institute of Moving Images and worked in the film industry before returning to his hometown to start farming. In 2012, he established the agricultural corporation Hyakushodo Honpo. The apple industry is struggling with an aging workforce, a shortage of new talent to take over the business, neglected farmland, and other issues that it must address with proactive measures. Takahashi is the head of Hyakushodo Honpo, a company established by young apple farmers to ignite business for the future of the industry. You will learn surprising facts about the humble apple and discover Takahashi's passion for cidre making.

MORIYAMAEN

Toshihiko Moriyama

Moriyama is the fourth owner of the century-old apple orchard MORIYAMAEN. In 2018, he launched TEKIKAKA CIDRE, the world's first cidre created with culled apples. He engages in novel efforts such as digitalizing apple production data and work records for each tree using QR codes.

Cidre ambassadors

Satoshi and Mio Nakayama

This couple's love for cidre persuaded them to move to Hirosaki, the birthplace of Japanese cidre. They opened their business named cidre & café in Hirosaki on April 18, 2021.
・Cidre ambassadors (certified by the Japan Cider Masters Association)
・Pastry Diploma (Le Cordon Bleu Japan) / Mio Nakayama

* The locations and activities in the tour are subject to change.

meets Cidre Tasting

Enjoy different craft cidres

After the visiting the cidre mills, you can taste craft cidres made at each location. Enjoy a special boxed lunch prepared with local ingredients together with cidres that offer a wide range of tastes and aromas.

meets Art Performance

Apple Phone headphones

This system uses the apple tree itself as a speaker, so you can hug the tree and branches or put your ear against the apples to hear the sound.
The sound changes based on the activity of the apple tree and how strongly you touch the tree. Enjoy the apple's aroma, its feel on your skin, and its sounds, using all your senses!

Kohji Setoh
After establishing a media art unit named flow in 1997 and going on to launch projects inside and outside of Japan in small unutilized spaces within cities, Setoh formed the artist collective ROOT CULTURE in 2006. He has engaged in a wide range of activities such as holding festivals and symposia in Kamakura, running a café inside the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, issuing free newspapers, creating stage performances, and going on tours inside and outside Japan.
 In recent years, he has managed Full Kusatsu, an art unit that performs works from the Fluxus art movement that was active in the 1960s. He also holds a tea ceremony named Taiki no Irie that involves listening to sounds during the proceedings. He creates installations using live plants as musical instruments and speakers so that people can experience the relationship between the Earth, plants, and people through sounds.

Chef

Michiaki Sasamori

Born in Hirosaki, Aomori in 1973, Sasamori was drawn to cooking when he visited an Italian restaurant in Sendai, and he worked there for three years.
After training for another three years at famed restaurants in Tokyo and elsewhere, he moved to Italy in January 2001 for two and a half years of study at the Michelin two-star restaurants Dolada and Arnolfo, among other locations, before returning to Japan in June 2003. To mark his 30th birthday in August 2003, he opened the Italian restaurant Osteria Enoteca da Sasino in Hirosaki.

Sasamori has drawn nationwide attention as his preparation process does not begin in the kitchen—he grows his own vegetables and makes his own uncured ham, cheeses, and wine as well. He has been covered in countless magazines and other media spots, including the TV program Jonetsu Tairiku.
- Winner of the Silver Culinary Award, Masters 2019—a chef award from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Osteria Enoteca da Sasino website

Jean-Michel OTHONIEL

The Knot of Eden

2020
Mirrored glass, stainless steel
Collection of the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art

Created by French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, who was inspired by the beauty of apples on his visit to Hirosaki in 2018. This artwork features a large knot formed from a chain of 168 beads. The red beads are based on the Hirosaki apples that inspired Othoniel.
This work was created as a long-term installation for the space inside the brickwork museum. It reflects the surroundings with mirrored glass to create a three-dimensional effect in harmony with but that stands out magnificently in the space.

Cerith WYN EVANS

Drawing in Light (and Time)...suspended

2020
White neon, framed pigment print
Collection of the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art

This large, 7-meter high light sculpture formed from neon tubes was created by UK artist Cerith Wyn Evans. His inspiration draws from his research visit to Hirosaki when he spotted a "Flower of Kent," the apple variety that is said to have inspired Newton to discover the law of universal gravity. This artwork incorporates themes of the apple as a type of flora, along with cidre, original sin, universal gravitation, and planet orbits.

Cidre

The Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art is a former brewery that was the first to engage in the large-scale production of cidre in Japan. It began selling products in 1955 under the name Asahi Cidre. With craft cidre drawing attention nationwide, Hirosaki currently has about 10 cidre brands each with their own story and character. The cidre in each brand is made by squeezing and fermenting whole apples, thereby retaining the fruit's natural sweet, sour, and umami flavors. These brands include both sparkling and non-sparking options. Sparkling cidres are the mainstream worldwide, either using the natural gas from the production process or by carbonating the finished product.