Experiencing one of the interactive digital art exhibitions by teamLab is a must for travelers in Japan who are interested in contemporary art experiences.

teamLab, an international art collective founded in 2001, is renowned for interactive digital art installations that push the boundaries between art, technology, design and nature, redefining how viewers experience art. teamLab exhibits around the world, but their permanent installations in Tokyo are among the most acclaimed.

The enduringly popular teamLab Planets, opened in 2018 in Toyosu, near the early morning tuna auction. Spread across several large galleries and two gardens, the exhibition invites viewers to remove their shoes and step into an interactive display of sound, light and elements.

Viewers physically experience the artwork through a set route, including walking through a room of shallow water with moving projections.

Each gallery offers something different and unexpected, such as contemplative rooms of falling flowers or scintillating spaces of hanging crystals.

The whimsical galleries are a great place for families and visitors of all ages to challenge their perceptions of the world around them. Visitors can spend hours exploring and seeing the works remix and interact with the spaces.

The most recent opening in Tokyo from teamLab is teamLab Borderless, a digital art museum that opened in 2024 in Azabudai Hills, an upscale entertainment district in the south of Tokyo.

Here, teamLAB explores the concept of “borderless” through artworks relating to and influencing each other in different spaces throughout the museum. Unlike teamLab Planets, teamLab Borderless is designed for viewers to experience without a map or set route.

The dazzling exhibition includes several reimaginations of favorite rooms from teamLab Planets as well as many more new works—such as moving light sculptures—presented in a series of winding galleries and hidden spaces.

Interactive digital installations, such as Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour (teamLab, 2014), pull the viewer into the conceptual world of the artwork. In this nature-focused installation, flowers bloom endlessly around the visitor while they stay still; if they touch or step on the flowers, the petals scatter and wither.

teamLab Borderless has an innovative museum cafe concept, the En Tea House, where visitors can rest, enjoy a snack or savor a cup of flowering tea. The experience of sipping tea is part of the art installation Flowers Bloom in an Infinite Universe inside a Teacup (2016), in which digital projections on the tea create the illusion of flowers blooming in and out of the teacup.

As a result, the tea-drinking visitor becomes part of the art installation, continuing the museum’s immersive, experiential, borderless concept by making the viewer part of the fluid, shifting artwork.

teamLab continues to expand its permanent exhibitions, temporary installations and creative collaborations, transforming restaurants, botanical gardens, tea houses, onsen ryokan, and other spaces into unique, immersive art experiences in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan. Highlights include the teamLab Botanical Garden Osaka, an outdoor art experience in Nagai Botanical Garden in Osaka; teamLab Ruins and Heritage: Rinkan Spa & Tea Ceremony, a series of installations in a historic Japanese garden in Kyushu that encompasses a teahouse from the Edo period and an onsen resort with hot springs and bathhouses.

The most recent highly-anticipated opening from teamLab is teamLab: Hidden Traces of Rice Terraces, an outdoor digital art experience in a picturesque rice terrace.

Contact Artisans of Leisure to begin planning a customized private Japan tour featuring contemporary digital exhibitions by teamLab and other incredible art and architecture sites in Tokyo, Naoshima and throughout the country.