Message

Satoyama Recollections to Light Up the Future
The Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009

Powerful art unleashed through a rural setting

Japan's rural areas are very impoverished. After struggling to develop waste lands and swamps and create rice terraces in mountains to cultivate rice, relentlessly working the land, all of a sudden, the country's policies point to no longer needing rice.

With Japan's modernization, the young labor force has left for the cities. Those left behind have endured the pain, wishing that they, too, could go and further their education. But it is a tall order to curtail the farming industry and order people to move to the cities or central areas because "things in the far-away countryside are inefficient and people there should just give up." Further, it is just too much to be give out cash to people in return for them ceasing farm work.

We are all guided by self-interest, and if offered money, we will accept. This, however, is an affront on our pride. What will happen to the fields that our ancestors worked so hard on, what will happen to these beautiful communities, and what will happen to their family graves. The jiichan and baachan (elderly men and women) feel depressed.

The Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial was conceived with the following in mind: "This cannot happen. If art is our friend, such as it has been seen since the prehistoric times of Altamira and Lascaux, and if art is loved by people and has the power to make us happy, such as with Bruegel's caricatures and Japan's picture scrolls, then we must draw this power out here, in the countryside."

Art is a method, a technique, for learning about links between humans and nature, civilization, and society.

Going home to where you are called by name

The meeting of "old people in mountainous areas engaged in farm work" and "artists/young people from cities/abroad who are doing some sort of 'art' (but not really sure what)" came about in 2000 at the first Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial. This encounter of people from different places, generations and fields of work was the subject of countless criticism and questioning, and caused much trouble.

Through the production process, however, the artists' works, which captured the long years of labor put into the area, the dense communities and the abundant lives the people there are blessed with, worked their way into the people's hearts and brought about feelings of affinity. With good faith and the uncertainty of a young child, everything then came together. We take this opportunity to express our gratitude for the hard work of the Kohebi （Little Snake Squad）, our supporters who we have only been able to credit for their "cooperation."

We used to think thought that rural communities needed outsiders, experts from the city. But what we have learnt from the experiences of the past ten years is that it is probably precisely because people are from the city that they desire the countryside so much.

Tokyo is full of money, information and signs, and what is considered important here is access to the latest and most amount of information in the shortest amount of time. The city is overflowing with stimulation, excitement, desire, consumption and change, but there is nothing that relates deeply with the five senses, the body, and emotions. City people abstract the individual's feelings and the different emotions felt in life, dealing only with others as "Company Worker A" and "Student A." It is as if humans are robots that can be replaced. Perhaps these people are searching for the countryside, where they can be called by name and treated as individuals? Perhaps they are looking for a new homeland? This is the impression we get when we observe supporters of the event and see how passionate they are about it.

An opportunity for all our individual efforts

The artists left the cities and white cubes behind to come to the region, interacting with communities that have been working on the land for as far back as 1,500 years. Surprised by what they saw, they created pieces celebrating the sights, the times, the lifestyles there. Artwork then emerged that was different from urban art commonly seen in the 20th century, that portray the ills of civilization and the miseries in the cities: They were guidelines for an age of a global environment. This art connected people with nature, the countryside, and each other, driven by the innate self and emotions of the body. Instead of a standard, uniform human, we began to see humans that internalized the power of time, the countryside, and nature. And thus, the jiichan and baachan began to talk about the art as if it were their own.

"Culture" is an accumulation of how people live their lives in a certain place. This includes hopes for an even better life as well as for a universality that connects different people to each other.

Art in Tsumari has emerged as a way of life and a method for understanding society and the world. It is not just statues, paintings and installations: There have been more and more projects that anyone can participate in and that are aimed at fully understanding people and the countryside, through food and bodily expressions, music, picnics, and movies, for example.

As we face a global environmental crisis and the bottleneck of a capitalist economy, what can we do? Before using up all our energy and embarking on the road of endless options, we can first learn from our ancestors who were guided by the power of the land and were deeply involved in the countryside. This can only serve to encourage people's various efforts as well as the manifestation of man's intrinsic nature. Art is a way to do this.

The event's appeal due to limitless linkages

Empty houses and abandoned schools in the community; The weak, the elderly, marginalized in society; Artists and youth; Rural areas left behind due to inefficiency; Different forms of culture: Everything began because of the many linkages, donations and collaborations in these spheres.

The pieces in the 4th Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial continue to be gathered through voluntary participation by various artists. There are also works this year from the North-East Asia Art Village, Nowhere of the Netherlands, a Cambodian circus, the Jinenjo Club and Kamikoani Village in Akita prefecture. The work on empty houses and abandoned schools by Kyoto Seika University, Australia House and others is groundbreaking.

We should probably recall that it is here, in the countryside, that many of those marginalized by the state were taken in and able to make a brand new start in life.

With the support of many, the art festival will be held again in the summer of 2009. This is the result of a long journey and we are very grateful for everyone's efforts.

Cheers to the countryside and mankind, and to everything we feel about life! See you in Tsumari.