Ping Pong Platz

An experimental art project/proposal conceived in collaboration with Ayumu Haitani and Silvia Piantini.
An initiative aimed at highlighting the potential of outdoor ping-pong tables as a social tool capable of facilitating conviviality, aggregation and interaction among all people.

A long-term project whose main goal is to install permanent tables in the city contributing to shaping the urban context and, at the same time, to promoting a different idea of how the public space in Tokyo and in Japan can be experienced without any barrier, encouraging new encounters. 

The independent project - started informally at the end of 2022 with a group of people outsider to the art and cultural  world - slowly grew month after month by collaborating with new local people, institutions and companies. 
In 2025, in less than three years, the first three permanent Ping Pong Platz spaces were created in Tokyo, two in Sumida district and one in Shibuya's one. 

Ping Pong Platz Instagram page 

In 2023, thanks to the "Sumi-Yume" art grant offered by the Municipality of Sumida and Hokusai Museum, many pop-up events were organized in different locations of Sumida district, by installing temporary mobile ping pong tables for different durations: sometimes for just a day, sometimes for a week long. A great way to test the idea's efficacy and to receive feedbacks by locals and passers-by.
In parallel, the project collaborated with Chiba Design University organizing a workshop for the students aimed at creating a modular table suitable for kids and adults.

In 2024, it was started a collaboration with a real estate company by renting for almost three months a vacant plot, located along the shopping street in Kyojima. There it was installed a concrete ping pong table created by a local artist. A longer test bench to verify the create more awareness towards the project and to involve always more people.
Since the neighborhood appreciated much the initiative's potential, the landlord proposed Ping Pong Platz group to use the "akichi" (empty plot) free of charge for a much longer commitment.

In 2025 - thanks to a commission by Tokyo Metropolitan Government for the Hibiya Ping Pong Platz project - three new permanent Ping Pong Platz spaces have born in Tokyo: Kyojima PPP, Campus Common PPP and Hiroo PPP. 
Two of them are in Sumida and one is in Shibuya. Two are hosted in private spaces converted into a public function thanks to the project, while the third one is hosted in a public park.
In all these cases the tables and benches are lent by the artist free of charge and without any specific deadline.


 

After the success of the 2024 trial period, the Ping Pong Platz members negotiated the transformation of the empty plot into a safer and more accessible space, engaging the landlord in bearing the transformation costs.

The project was possible thanks to a long-term collaboration with UR Urban Renaissance Agency, a major private public Japanese real estate company that collaborated with an artist for the first time in their seventy years long history.

Kyojima Ping Pong Platz is hosted at “Akichi+”, a private space that works as a public one, always accessible by anyone.

This intervention is a collaboration with the Municipality of Sumida City and with UDC Urban Design Campus. Two tables hosted in a public park, distant only five minutes from Kyojima Ping Pong Platz, and placed exactly where the first pop-up event took place in 2023.
Given the strategic position, a bit removed from the residential area, people are allowed to play all night long.

The first PPP in Tokyo outside Sumida is installed at Courtyard Hiroo, in Shibuya City, a creative hub that hosts a project room, a coworking space and a residency for artists. The garden is private but it’s freely accessible during opening hours.
Hiroo Ping Pong Platz is a collaboration between the artist and Atom Real Estate Company, owner of Courtyard Hiroo.

Table talks are public events, open to everyone and free of charge, conceived with the intention of using tables as meeting places and alternative sharing platforms, starting from the relationship between the Ping Pong Platz project and the area in which it is located.

Three talks in three different days, hosting guests linked to the socio-cultural context of Sumida-ku and Kyojima district, with the aim of fostering collective reflection on public space and encouraging open discussion towards activism and imagination.
Due to the weather two of the talks were hosted indoor instead that at the tables. 

An open ping pong tournament whose teams are representative of the local shops of "Kira Kira Tachibana Shootengai", a unique local shopping street in Sumida that hosts the Kyojika Ping Pong Platz too. Each team two members, sixteen teams, thirty-two players. Strange outfit welcome. The barber shop's team won the first prize, second place the "curry rice" shop, third place restaurant "Hoppe"

Ping Pong Platz

a project conceived by: Giacomo Zaganelli in collaboration with Ayumu Haitani and Silvia Piantini
supported by: Sumi-Yume art project; Municipality of Sumida City, Tokyo; UR Urban Renaissance; UDC Urban Design Center; Atom Co., Ltd.; Tokyo Byokane Co., Ltd.; Yasaka Japan.