Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009
  • Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009
  • Venue：Echigo-Tsumari Region, 760 square kilometers
  • [Tokamachi City + Tsunan Town, Niigata Prefecture]
  • Organized by：Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial Executive Committee
  • Co-organized by：NPO Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Collaborative Organization
  • Chairman：Yoshifumi Sekiguchi (Mayor of Tokamachi)
  • Honorary chairman: Hirohiko Izumida (Governor of Niigata)
  • Vice chairman：Mikio Kobayashi (Mayor of Tsunan Town)
  • General producer：Soichiro Fukutake
  • General director：Fram Kitagawa
  • Art advisors：Tony Bond, Tom Finkelpearl, Ulrich Shneider, Yuka Irisawa, Yusuke Nakahara
  • Number of artworks：350 artworks by artists from 38 countries (including 200 new artworks)

Passport

ETAT Passport
Adults: 3,000 yen advance (3,500 yen at the door)
University students + Silver (65 years or over):
2,000 yen advance (2,500 yen at the door)
Elementary, junior high and high school students:
500 yen advance (800 yen at the door)

Contact

  • Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial Tokyo Secretariat
  • c/o Art Front Gallery
  • Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033
  • TEL +81 (0)3 3476 4360 FAX +81 (0)3 3476 4874
  • E-mail:tsumaripr@artfront.co.jp URL: www.echigo-tsumari.jp/english
Echigo-Tsumari Autumn 2009: October 3 (Sat) through November 23 (Mon)

The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (ETAT) is an art festival held once every three years in the landscape of Echigo-Tsumari, a region distressed with the problems of depopulation and aging. ETAT began ten years ago by uncovering the many aspects of value inherent in the region through the medium of art in an attempt to lay down a path for the revitalization of the region through raising its attractiveness and ability to transmit to the world.
The approximately 350 artworks, deployed in communities, rice fields, vacant houses and closed schools, are the fruit born from the collaboration and exchanges between rural locality and city, artist and satoyama, and young and old. With the hundreds of artworks recalling the labors of our ancestors who interacted with the Earth through agriculture, allow your senses to be liberated by the radiant smiles of the elderly men and women of Echigo-Tsumari and deeply imbibe the wonder of life in a new journey.
   
 

The Cultural Projects Division of the Day After Tomorrow Newspaper
Various events presided over by Katsuhiko Hibino, including an exhibition and a muddy rice field soccer tournament.

  

Seizo Tashima Museum of Picture Book Art
The whole school building turns into the picture book world of Seizo Tashima. A variety of activities, such as a café and workshops, to be presented.

  

Fukutake House
A project by Producer Soichiro Fukutake to bring together major galleries from Japan, China and South Korea and create an impressive gallery-street.
 
   
 

Embracing Asia - Taeko Tomiyama Retrospective 1950-2009
A retrospective exhibition of the works of Taeko Tomiyama, who has made sincere efforts to grapple with the problems of modern Japan, is finally realized here with a concert and symposium.

  

Wasted
The pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama, based in the Netherlands, attempts an installation to create a maze from 10,000 dresses.

  

Last Class
At the school reborn through joint efforts by Christian Boltanski + Jean Kalman, the heartbeats of visitors will be recorded this summer. for Setouchi International Art Festival to be held in 2010.
     
 

Antony Gormley "Another Singularity"
The 'singularity' is the point of origin of the universe. A human figure appears in the stretched out wires.

  

Claude Lévêque "Dans le silence ou dans le bruit"
The objects remaining in a vacant house and the light and sound evoke the recollection of memories.

  

Chiharu Shiota "House Memory"
A house filled with woolen yarn stretched across the internal spaces like a spider's web.

  

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller "Storm House"
A house where the windows flash with lightening and the shadows of trees flit and dart around.
     
 

Stasys & Kolodziejski/Witaszewski (A+D) "The Visitors"
A huge shipwreck with a 14-meter mast appears in the Tsumari mountain land.

  

Antje Gummels "Internal Voyage"
Countless eyes and human figures watch you as you step into this beech forest.

  

Pascal Marthin Tayou "Reverse City"
A huge 5-meter high 3D artwork featuring innumerable pencils and pieces of sharpened wood.

  

Yukihisa Isobe "A natural dike of the ancient River Shinano was here"
Visualization of a field through which the Shinano flowed 15,000 years ago.
     
 

Yayoi Kusama
"Tsumari in Bloom"

  

Richard Deacon
"Mountain"

  

Dominique Perrault
"Pavillon/Papillon"

  

Architect Office Casagrande & Rintala
"POTEMKIN"
   


 

Australia House
Australia House will be established with the full support of the Australia-Japan Foundation, the Australian Embassy, and Asialink as a permanent base for cultural exchanges between Australia and Echigo-Tsumari. This summer, three artists and a curator will work in residence to collaborate with the community in doing art projects.
 

North-East Asia Art Village
Centering on Uwano community, Tsunan Town, where Cai Guo Qiang and Kim Koohan's artworks are located, an artists-in-residence facility will be initiated for North-East Asian artists to create artworks in residence while collaborating with local residents.
The aim is to build up a long-term network with North-East Asia in cooperation with the University of Hong Kong, China Academy of Art and others.
Lee Jaehyo (Korea)
 

Kingsley Ng (Hong Kong)
Jennifer Wen Ma (China/USA)
 

Guan Huaibin (China)
Lin Shuenlong (Taiwan)
   

Cambodian Circus: Phare Pnleu Selpak
By means of a circus, the NGO Phare Pnleu Selpak is playing an active role in giving young people hope and the will to live in Cambodia, a country suffering from land mines and human trafficking. With the cooperation of France, the Mecca of nouveau cirque, they have developed a circus incorporating colorful ethnic Cambodian music and dance which has caught the hearts of the world.
Venue: Matsudai "No Butai"
Dates: August 13-16

 

Green Music Festival with NOWHERE
The young Amsterdammers of Nowhere take to the stage with the popular Dutch soul singer Caprice, DJ Kid Sublime and Too Tall. A song and dance collaboration between the Netherlands and Echigo-Tsumari in which the youth of Tokamachi come together to create a new festival.
Venue: Nagumohara Yui-no-Sato
Date: 1 August

 

The heart of Japan in narrative and song - A Peaceful Message from UA, Bunraku and Noh
Song "For Tomorrow": UA / Noh: Nobuyuki Ohe /
Bunraku puppets: Kanroku + Mokugusha | Noh
play: "Kirishitohoro Shonin Den" by Ryunosuke
Akutagawa | Bunraku: Komanosuke Takemoto
(Living National Treasure) / Shamisen: Tsugaju
Tsurusawa / Puppets: Kanroku + Mokugusha / Noh
Performer: Nobuyuki Ohe
Venue: Matsudai "No Butai"
Date: 30 August

 

BEAT ASIA
Performing and dancing as if driven by the power of nature. The Japanese drum group ZA ONDEKOZA,
creative Dengakumai dance Jinenjo Club, the Indonesian farmers percussion rock band Kahanan,
led by the popular percussionist Innisisri, the dancer Bimo Wiwohatmo, and others.
Venue: Matsudai "No Butai"
Date: 22 August

 

Two films have been created with Echigo-Tsumari as the location. One film, "Shutters 4" (directed by Daisuke Hatanaka), portrays a shopkeeper who is struggling to revitalize a shopping street. One further film is "Koyamaru," directed by the French artist Jean-Michel Alberola, who spent two years filming the life of a small community of only four dwellings in all four seasons. After the art tour, watch a film in the evening! Venue: Tokamachi Cine Paradise
Jean-Michel Alberola "KOYAMARU"
 

Tsumari Ware Project
Tokamachi is known for the many Jomon flame-formed earthenware vessel that has been excavated and designated as National Treasures. The Tsumari Ware Project began as an attempt to resuscitate the 'pottery' (yakimono) that has not been produced for 3,000 years.
For this Triennial, an open juried exhibition of 'Tsumari ware' works and an exhibition of works by five representative Japanese ceramic artists will be held.

 

As you tour around viewing the artworks, you will see mushiro-bata (mat-flags) here and there. At lunchtime, local folk rest from their work in the fields and gather to sit in a circle around a mushiro-bata to eat onigiri (rice balls).
This is a project for you to join the circle and enjoy the exchange and the onigiri. Each locality has devised some kind of special delicious onigiri, made with the koshihikari rice variety grown in Uonuma. Come and bask in this unusual opportunity to interact with the local community folk - you never know where you will make new friends!