On the inaugural issue of the web-magazine, Art from the Land

It has been almost twenty years since the inaugural Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in 2000. I am pleased to launch this official web magazine Art from the Land as a new venture at this point of the festival’s development. In conjunction with the editorial team, I would like to communicate highlights of the festival and Echigo-Tsumari in various ways.

A theme proposed by staff members for this first article in the editor’s column series was “enduring ideas and new thoughts for Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale twenty years on”. I would respond that the feeling I had at the beginning is unchanged and has even got stronger, while I would like to embark on new adventures as the festival advances its depth.

At the same time, the festival is open to and supported by many people which include artists participating from abroad, visitors coming from different countries, volunteers who are an essential part of the festival operation and if I may add, staff members’ tireless efforts.

Everyone holds his own expectation for the festival. Some may look forward to “experiencing arts in nature and satoyama” whereas others would regard this project as the frontier of the contemporary art. People also repeatedly visit here to review their lives as they throw themselves into an unusual space and time.

Many discoveries were made and networks were nurtured – beyond my prediction – which contributed to deepening the festival over the course of twenty years. Some movements have also been born beyond the boundaries of culture and countries which can suggest alternative approaches to how the society and the region should be in the foreseeable future.

In this web magazine, we will introduce artworks with their respective behind-the-scene stories, reports by various people based upon their own experiences and perspectives on the festival by its supporters. I will also share the attractions of this region which I would like you to know through the festival.

Talking about myself, I have engaged with the festival by contemplating how we should live in this contemporary era – the time of the globalised economy, and the modernisation of Japan over the past 150 years, or alternatively over the past 70 years since the end of World War II.

The festival represents my philosophy and I have been thinking about the issue of spaces for people to occupy in the contemporary era, the problem of social connections, challenges of labour as well as the fundamental dignity of human beings. I would like to share my thoughts in this web magazine when appropriate.

While some people think that “contemporary art is a way to engage with the problem of a city and therefore the leading edge lies in a metropolis”, I would disagree. Over years, I have been made aware of the significance of presenting the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in a place like Echigo-Tsumari.

Artworks are produced and appreciated in a space consisting of multiple layers of a place – nature, history and the life of people bring different attractions to people as opposed to viewing artworks in a white cube, as if conducting chemistry experiments.

This explains the reason why many artists who work internationally willingly participate in the festival and they seem to be “keen to find out what would happen here”. I believe that we could find more fundamental themes for ourselves living in this contemporary era, different from the short-term tendencies that often dominates the art scene.

As we have seen, many different elements contribute to make the festival and there surely exists something interesting in this “disorganised, mix of everything” world.  This was one of the biggest lessons I have learnt during over twenty years of engagement with Echigo-Tsumari.