The journey towards ‘Star Wars Episode VIII‘ officially began at the start of September with Force Friday II and things are starting to ramp up as we get ever closer to the release of ‘The Last Jedi‘ mid-December.

Last month it was announced that there would be a free Star Wars art exhibition running for about ten days in October in Tokyo. It can be found above the Vacant clothing store in Harajuku and is not too far away from the bottom end of the crazily-busy Takeshita Dori shopping street. A quick walk cutting through the fashionable street from JR Harajuku Station really is not possible!

Admittedly my expectations were pretty low for this exhibition as I ascended the steps. I just thought it would be a small room featuring some framed art pieces on the walls. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see there were life-sized stormtroopers on display (below) and some interesting art pieces from featured artists including Katsuya Kamo, Kim Songhe, Kosuke Kawamura, Lambda Takahashi, Ryota Aoki, Usugrow, Yoshirotten and Yu Nagaba.

The section I first headed for was Ryota Aoki’s pottery collection (below) which included a C3P0 head and some decorated stormtrooper helmets which reminded me of a display on the ground floor of the Mori Arts Center (promoting the Star Wars Visions Exhibition on the 52nd floor) in Roppongi a couple of years ago.

I can’t say that I understood all the art pieces on display but I still enjoyed seeing the creative work that the featured artists came up with.

This exhibition runs until Sun 15th October 2017 (12:00 – 19:00) and entry is free! The address is 3-20-13 Jingu-mae in Shibuya-ku and to be honest it is very much a 5-10 minute place for those who can’t read Japanese. It was full of people just clicking away on their camera phones and I was one of them of course!

That wasn’t the only exhibition I went to in the Harajuku area as my friend Yayu (of Yayaland Studio fame!) was showcasing a Chinese ink painting exhibition around the corner from there. The main focus was her father Shun Wang’s ink paintings and splendid they all were.

Click here to read more about the artist in an interview by Maction Planet