New York Botanical Garden Reschedules Yayoi Kusama's Exhibition

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
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New York Botanical Garden Reschedules Yayoi Kusama's Exhibition

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters

Art lovers have been offered a second chance to enjoy an exceptional exhibition devoted to the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) this year after it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the organizers, the exhibition which was first scheduled in 2020 will take place this year between April 10 and October 31.

The exhibition, which will be held in the heart of greenery in Bronx, will focus on Kusama's fondness of nature by displaying many of her works including drawings and sculptures.

The famous Japanese artist, 91, known for her colorful polka-dotted works, held many exhibitions around the world, and has become one of the most renowned painters in her generation. She even opened her own museum in Tokyo. In addition to housing large collections of living plants, the New York Botanical Garden host regular exhibitions for famous painters.

In 2018, visitors flocked into the garden to enjoy the impressive works of painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986).

In 2019, the garden hosted an exhibition by the Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994).



Tokyo Hospital Opens City's First 'Baby Hatch'

People use boats on Chidorigafuchi, one of the moats around the Imperial Palace, to look at cherry blossoms as the blossom viewing season begins in full in central Tokyo on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
People use boats on Chidorigafuchi, one of the moats around the Imperial Palace, to look at cherry blossoms as the blossom viewing season begins in full in central Tokyo on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
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Tokyo Hospital Opens City's First 'Baby Hatch'

People use boats on Chidorigafuchi, one of the moats around the Imperial Palace, to look at cherry blossoms as the blossom viewing season begins in full in central Tokyo on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
People use boats on Chidorigafuchi, one of the moats around the Imperial Palace, to look at cherry blossoms as the blossom viewing season begins in full in central Tokyo on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)

A Tokyo hospital on Monday became the Japanese capital's first medical institution to offer a system allowing the safe, anonymous drop-off of infants by parents unable to raise them.

Used for centuries globally, so-called baby boxes or baby hatches are meant to prevent child abandonment or abuse.

But they have been criticized for violating a child's right to know their parents, and are also sometimes described by anti-abortion activists as a solution for desperate mothers.

Newborns within four weeks of age can now be placed in a basket in a quiet room with a discreet entrance at a hospital in Tokyo run by the Christian foundation Sanikukai, AFP reported.

The scheme, open 24 hours a day, is meant to be an "emergency, last-resort measure" to save babies' lives, Hitoshi Kato, head of Sanikukai Hospital, told a news conference.

There are still "mothers and babies with nowhere to go", the hospital said in a statement, citing the "abandonment of infants in baggage lockers, parks or beaches".

Sanikukai is only Japan's second medical institution to open a baby hatch, after the Catholic-run Jikei hospital in southwestern Japan's Kumamoto region opened one in 2007.

At Sanikukai in Tokyo, when a baby is put in the basket, a motion sensor immediately alerts hospital staffers to the drop-off, sending them rushing downstairs to tend to the baby, project leader Hiroshi Oe told AFP.

After confirming the baby's safety, the hospital will work with authorities to help decide the "best possible" next step, including foster care or a children's home.

If the person leaving the baby is seen lingering around the hospital, efforts will be made to engage them, Oe said.