Sintra City is a sister city of Omura City of Nagasaki Prefecture. It first flourished in the 13th century as a summer resort for the royal family and was designate as UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, where a number of beautiful castles and churches from the Middle Ages still remain intact.
Ms. Maria Nobre Franco, director of the museum, expressed an interest in joining the project after seeing the Kaki Tree Project exhibit at Venice Biennial. The city of Sintra emphasizes on cultural policy and the museum was already conducting workshops and guided tours for children every week, in cooperation with elementary schools. So the museum was very keen on welcoming the persimmon tree there. In the meantime, Ms. Marina Sequeira Costa encouraged the city and schools to consider how they want to welcome the tree, and the tree planting project was developed during the course of 2 years. A variety of programs such as theater pieces and songs were performed at the ceremony. Especially, Mr. Jose Manuel, a teacher, at A.J. school along with his students beautifully expressed the theme of the Kaki Tree Project, “Revive”, through a performance, which they had rehearsed for 6 months. At the opening of the “Exhibition with the theme of Kaki Tree”, little children did a performance expressing different ways of communication in the world such as bowing and kissing.
