Art Festival 2022" Echigo - tsumari Art Triennale Edition/English version
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In this first installment of PLAZA's Art Festival Project, which focuses on art festivals held in Japan and abroad, we shared our knowledge of the actual situation and contents of the festivals, and discussed them from various perspectives, comparing and discussing the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and the Setouchi International Art Festival. In this issue, we bring you a report on the Echigo -Tsumari Art Triennale, including the content of the day's presentation!
Introduction
In the sculpture course of Nihon University College of Art, where I belong to, I have been creating and exhibiting a single work of art with a professor and other volunteer students, and I have been interacting with local residents, including visiting the site in 2021 and spending a week there as an artist in 2022.
In addition to these activities, I often hear from people deeply involved in regional art festivals such as the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in my university classes, and I have begun to think about the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and the role of regional art festivals in Japan in my own way. The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was the beginning of art festivals and a progressive experiment. This unprecedented project to hold an art event in a depopulated and aging rural area has continued to this day, overcoming unique challenges that cannot be found in ordinary museums and galleries. What are the advantages and challenges of holding art events in local communities? And what will happen to this long-running art festival in the future? In this issue, I will talk about these experiences in my own way.
About Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
Outline of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
What exactly is the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale?
The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale is an international art festival that has been held for more than 20 years in the Echigo-Tsumari region of Niigata Prefecture, a depopulated and aging region. With the basic principle of "humans are contained within nature," the festival demonstrates the possibilities of how humans and nature can interact. Since the artists create things on other people's land, communication with the local community is essential. For this reason, collaboration transcends generations, regions, and genres. There are approximately 200 works on permanent display, including outdoor sculptures and works utilizing abandoned schools and vacant houses, which open up the local community and make the most of what is there.
Venue
Echigo-Tsumari, the setting for this exhibition, is a region consisting of six areas: Kawanishi, Matsudai, Matsunoyama, Nakasato, Tokamachi, and Tsunan. The region has heavy snowfall (and has been since the Jomon period!). ), this is a land where rice has been cultivated in harsh conditions. People have lived their lives while exploring the inseparable relationship between humans and nature. From this, the basic philosophy that "humans are contained within nature" was born and has been carried through in all programs. Echigo-Tsumari is being developed as a model of the possibilities of how humans and nature can interact.
Dates
Like Setogei, this Triennale is held every three years.
In 2022, the Triennale will be held from April 29 to November 13, for a total of 145 days. Normally, the Triennale is held for about 50 days between July and September, but due to the impact of the new coronavirus, a longer period has been set for this year's Triennale so that many people can visit even if a state of emergency is declared in the middle of the Triennale.
Director
As with the Setouchi International Art Festival, the overall director of the festival is Mr. Fram Kitagawa.
So, how did this art festival begin? I consulted Mr. Kitagawa's book, "Art Opens the Region: Ten Thoughts on the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale," for my reference. Although the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale has a long history and is one of Japan's representative art festivals, many people may be unaware of its origins and thoughts. In this report, I will review the book, the words of people involved in the festival, and my own activities.
Click here for the book↓
Origins of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
Back in 1994, the governor of Niigata Prefecture proposed the "New Niigata Satoyama Plan. This plan aimed to divide the prefecture into several broad administrative regions, each of which would transmit its own unique value. The plan was adopted as the "Echigo-Tsumari Art Necklace Development Plan," a 10-year plan that aims to use art to enhance the attractiveness of the region and increase the number of people interacting with it. Mr. Kitagawa was approached as an advisor for this project.
The "Echigo-Tsumari Art Necklace Development Concept" had three plans. The first was the "Echigo-Tsumari 80,000 People's Discovery of Suteki", a photo and word contest to rediscover the original charm of the region's nature and culture. The number of entries was 3,114, which was a large scale. The second was "Flower Paths. This is a joint project with the participation of local residents to create an exchange network by planting flowers along roads and in private homes' yards. The project was not only a beautiful landscape, but also an infrastructure improvement project. The third project was the "Stage Development Project," in which each of the six municipalities developed a base of operations, with each having a role based on its own regional characteristics. Finally, in 2000, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was launched as a venue for presenting the results of the three projects every three years, with each activity converging through the medium of art. The objective is to energize the elderly in the community. Kitagawa believes that in a society based on the supremacy of economic efficiency, an urban-rural imbalance is occurring. The pursuit of efficiency is preventing elderly people in rural areas from doing the work they used to do for a living, and the aging of the population and the concentration of young people in cities are causing a decrease in the number of people from the villages, which is gradually disappearing. In the midst of such a scene, this art festival began with the desire to see the smiling faces of the elderly.
So why art?
Mr. Kitagawa says, "Because local people are involved in the production in various ways, including providing tea and rice, the artwork belongs not only to the artist alone but also to the people of the community," "When local people actually enter the artwork and explain it, the artwork becomes familiar," and "The experience of actually being there and feeling the whole space moves people and becomes a force that attracts people. The experience of actually being there and feeling the entire space moves people and becomes a force that draws them in. Here we can see that art functions as a relationship generator. As in the case of Setogei, the main goal is to restore the community. Art is the gateway to achieve this goal.
The Relationship between NICHIGEI and the Echigo-Tsumari Art Trienniale
The Nihon University College of Art has been participating in the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale as the "Nichi-Gei Art Project" since the 2006 Triennale. In particular, in the sculpture course of the Department of Fine Arts, of which I am a member, a group of volunteer students led by Professor Junichi Kuurakake have been creating and interacting with the local community since the summer of 2004. At the time when we created this first piece of Nichigei sculpture, "Shedding House," the art festival itself was not yet accepted by the community, and the professors and students at that time needed not only to complete the work but also to gain the acceptance of the community.
The "Shedding House" is a work of art in which an empty house is shed and reborn as art by carving the entire empty house to expand the space contained within. It took two and a half years from planning to completion. The professors and students spent more than 160 days in the area to create the work. The work is also available as a farmhouse guest house.
However, the local people found all of this difficult to accept. Although the professors and students were careful to be courteous and tidy, trash and dirt inevitably occurred during the production process, and the concept of "carving an abandoned house" itself was incomprehensible to the local people. The concept of "carving an abandoned house" itself was incomprehensible to the local people. However, through daily greetings, interaction, and above all, by having people see the work in progress, it gradually gained acceptance, and in the end, a work of art was completed that was loved by everyone.
Looking back on the history of the Nichigei Sculpture, it is easy to see how the festival is characterized by "creating works on other people's land. In order to create something on someone else's land, it is necessary to obtain the approval of the local people. For this reason, production and exchanges that take place outside of the exhibition period are very important. Nichigei Sculpture also actively interacted with and became a part of the local community by organizing events such as athletic meets and festivals, and by participating in local events such as rice harvesting and rice planting. It is because of the history spun by the former students that we, the present-day Nichigei Sculpture, are able to create in the land of Niigata. (More on the work we produced this time next time!)
Reflections and Questions about the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
Labor is often seen as a problem in the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale. What is noteworthy here is the Kohebi-tai, a group of volunteers who are indispensable to the realization of the Art Triennale. The Kohebi-tai is a volunteer group that supports the Art Triennale. The Kohebi-tai is a group of people of all ages, from different generations, genres, and regions. Some participate for only a few days, while others dedicate their lives to the festival. However, this Kohebi-tai faces a complex challenge. That is, we do not get paid.
When the Art Festival was just starting, the working environment for the Kohebi-tai was difficult because the local community did not yet understand what they were doing and there was a lack of manpower. They stayed in rooms without air conditioners in hot weather and had no days off. Most of their work involved persuading the local people. On the other hand, however, the early Kohebi-tai members had a strong sense of autonomy, and some of them worked in what is now called management or curation. However, around the time of the 4th session in 2009, when the concept of "volunteerism" became popular in the world, the number of Kohebi-tai members decreased significantly, perhaps because they questioned their own working environment. (We are now back to about the same number as before.) While a strong sense of autonomy is a good thing for an art festival, it is not good if it becomes a kind of "rewarding exploitation. However, if we are too passive, it will be difficult to sustain a regional art festival, where relationships with people are so important.
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale also faces the problem of "how to keep it going. The sheer number of artworks requires regular management and maintenance, which takes an enormous amount of time since they are all scattered across a vast area of nature. In addition, there is a lack of personnel to manage and maintain the work. If we continue to increase the number of works at the same pace as before, it is likely that we will not be able to keep up with management. Therefore, rather than increasing the number of works, it is necessary to focus on cultures that are originally rooted in the region, such as food culture.
An even more important issue is that "even with art festivals, depopulation is aging. It seemed as if artworks that made use of what was available in the region and made visitors aware of the local charms brought in immigrants and tourists, resulting in the revival of a depopulated and aging region. However, the current situation is that the population of the Echigo-Tsumari region has not stopped declining. From now on, through the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, it is necessary to increase the number of people who visit and are involved in the art festival, as well as those who care about the Echigo-Tsumari region.
This harsh reality makes us wonder if art is not the solution to depopulation. To begin with, Kitagawa's idea was to solve the imbalance between urban and rural areas. Does such a means really exist? Mr. Kitagawa presented us with the current situation of depopulated and aging communities and the role that art can play in this situation at this art festival. He showed us another role of art, which is to connect people to each other by going beyond the usual places such as museums and galleries and entering into the community. In response to this, I feel that we need to think about a new kind of art festival. Can we change the issues that Japan is facing, not through hard power of politics and laws, but through the softer way of art? And what is the shape of art festivals in the future? It is still difficult to give an answer, but we would like to continue to think about it through my activities at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.
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