Press Release | 2024.9.2

Leandro Erlich, The Nature Above (conceptual drawing), 2024

Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama will be heldfrom September 28th to November 24th.
The Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama: Clear-skies Country will be an international art festival held in the northern half of Okayama Prefecture, Japan in the autumn
of 2024. The art director is Yuko Hasegawa, the director of 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa, who will be directing her first art festival in Japan.
A total of 40 artists (39 groups) will participate.
Hasegawa describes her concept for the festival as follows:“While looking to the future, the festival does not depend on sophisticated digital technology or a glut of information. Instead, it detoxes these elements and gives full play
to sensibility, knowledge updating, and idea proposals. The enchantment of forests issure to induce an awakening to a new ecology.”

1Press Release | 2024.9.2

OutlineTitle: Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama: Clear-skies Country
Festival period: September 28th (sat) – November 24th (sun)Venue: 12 municipalities in Okayama Prefecture, JapanArt Director: Yuko Hasegawa
Organizer: Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama: Clear-skies Country Executive
Committee, Ryuta Ibaragi (Governor of Okayama Prefecture)
Official web-site: https://forestartfest-okayama.jp

Featuresof this festival- Even in the context of Japan, where many art festivals are held,
this festival is a unique one, in that it takes forest ecology as its
theme and sets forth diverse forms of symbiosis between nature and humanity in five large areas.
- It is an art festival showcasing a neo-capitalism that draws onnatural capital and remakes it into new capital together withexperts and local residents.
- The festival encompasses a wide variety of sites including forests, waterfalls, hot springs, highlands, caverns, historical postroads, Japanese-style gardens, and old Western-style buildings.
It offers site-specific works of art and projects by various creators and professionals such as artists, architects, flower arrangers, designers, performers, and researchers.
- Anri Sala provides a new interactive experience with use ofsound and light in a cavern containing a waterfall with a dropof 50 meters. At the end of another cavern appears a crimson
nirvana produced by NINAGAWA Mika with EiM. A display at the
Nagi MOCA manifests Arata Isozaki’s bold vision for the marriage of art and architecture. These are just some of the works
shown at the festival.
- There is another project for the preparation of cuisine, produced by a local chef who has won award in an international
competition.

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Art Director

Yuko Hasegawa
Yuko Hasegawa is a curator, educator and writer based out of Tokyo. She currently holds positions as
Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Director of Art and Design of theInternational House of Japan, Curator of the Better Co-being pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai, Artistic
Director of the Inujima Art House Project and Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of the Arts. She was
Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo until 2021 and during her post she curated solo
exhibitions of Dumb Type, Olafur Eliasson and rhizomatiks among others.
She has curated Japanese contemporary art and media and technology extensively both domestically andinternationally. Her curatorial language is interdisciplinary, encompassing not simply art but also architecture, design, science and anthropology, and combined with global curating experience, allows her to viewart as part of a single, holistic ecology.
Hasegawa has also curated, either solo or in a joint capacity, international art biennials including the 7thInternational Istanbul Biennial (2001), the Shanghai Biennale (2002), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010),
the Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), and the 7th Moscow Biennale (2017), Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021) andalso served as art advisor to the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale (2010). She has been honored with the
Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2024).

Artists

Tarek Atoui | born in Beirut, Lebanon, 1980, lives and works in Paris
Paola Besana | born in 1935 in Italy, died in 2021
Bianca Bondi | born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1986, lives and works in Paris
Masanobu Emi | born in Okayama in 1947, lives and works in Okayama
Leandro Erlich | born in Argentina in 1973, lives and works between Paris, Buenos Aires and Montevideo
Lucila Gradín | born in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina in 1981, lives and works in Buenos Aires
Katsukichi Higashi | born in Oita in 1908, died in 2007
Shiori Higashiyama | born in Hyogo in 1990, lives and works in Tokyo
AKI INOMATA | born in Tokyo in 1983, lives and works in Tokyo
Arata Isozaki | born in Oita, Japan in 1931, died in 2022
Umesh P K | born in India, lives and works in India
Atsunobu Katagiri | born in Osaka in 1973, lives and works in Osaka
Moe Kato | born in Saitama in 1988, lives and works in Okayama
Hideaki Kawashima | born in Aichi in 1969, lives and works in Tokyo
Rinko Kawauchi | born in Shiga in 1972, lives and works in Chiba
Kimsooja | born in 1957 in Daegu, Korea, lives and works in Seoul, New York and Paris
Chiharu Koda | born in Okayama, lives and works in Okayama
Chien-Chung Liao | born in Taipei in 1972, lives and works in Taipei
Michael Lin | born in Tokyo in 1964, lives and works in Taipei and Brussels
Yuka Mori | born in Osaka in 1991, lives and works in Kyoto
Mirai Moriyama | born in 1984, lives and works between Kobe and Tokyo
Ernesto Neto | born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro
NINAGAWA Mika with EiM
Saburo Ota | born in Yamagata in 1950, lives and works in Okayama
Smitha G S | born in in India , lives and works in India
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani
Ryuichi Sakamoto: born in 1952 in Tokyo, died in 2023, Shiro Takataki: born in 1963 in Nara, lives and works in Kyoto

Anri Sala | born in Albania in 1974, lives and works in France
Kazuyo Sejima | born in Ibaraki
Muhannad Shono | born in 1977 in Riyadh, KSA, lives and works in Riyadh, KSA
Yuko Someya | born in Chiba in 1980, lives and works in Chiba
Keita Sugiura | born in Okayama in 1980, lives and works in Okayama
Jukan Tateisi | born in Chicago in 1986, lives and works in Tokyo and London
Rirkrit Tiravanija | born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lives and works in NY, Berlin, Chiang Mai
Yoshihiko Ueda | born in Hyogo in 1957, lives and works in Kanagawa
Asim Waqif | born 1978 in Hyderabad, India, lives and works in India
Yuna Yagi | born in 1980, live and works in Kyoto
Giacomo Zaganelli | born in 1983, lives and works in Florence and Berlin

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About

The Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama:
Clear-skies Country will be an international art festival held in the northern halfof Okayama Prefecture in the autumn of2024.
From ancient times, the Izumo Road
linking the provinces of Yamato to theeast and Izumo to the west traversed
this area, whose castle towns and post
towns flourished in early modern times.
The area consequently has a legacy ofvarious traditional structures, crafts, andperforming arts. Its land and forests yieldan abundance of fruit, lumber, and otherproducts.
Various efforts are being made to ensure
the sustainability of its blessings. Of particular note is a project making effective
use of forest resources in applications
such as woody biomass power generation, which has been given high ratings
as a progressive model for attainment ofSDGs. In addition, the leisurely time andopen space represented by the Hiruzen
Highlands as well as the three Mimasaka
spas, limestone caves, and other features
which have not undergone excessive
tourism development hold new possibilities in ecological thinking.
The title “Forest Festival of the Arts” wasinspired by the forests in this area, which
are full of elements that are of vital importance for our lives, including a moderate
climate, ample supply of water and otherresources, and foodstuffs. They likewise
symbolize its diversity and richness asa place of natural bounty and culture,
where people come together.
Taking the activation of this bounty bornof forests into the future using the power of art as its objective, the festival willpose a question: “what kind of capital
do we truly need?” Under an outlook
regarding cultural facilities (such as art
museums, memorial halls, and schools),

life infrastructure (the supply of water,energy, and food), and the natural environment as components of the social
common capital, the point is to create
new capital through activities by not only
artists but also experts (architects, scientists, and ethnologists), with the cooperation of local residents.
Besid including a moderate climate, ample supply of water and other resources,
and foodstuffs. They likewise symbolize
its diversity and richness as a place of
natural bounty and culture, where people
come together.
Taking the activation of this bounty bornof forests into the future using the powerof art as its objective, the festival will posea question: “what kind of capital do wetruly need?” Under an outlook regarding
cultural facilities (such as art museums,
memorial halls, and schools), life infrastructure (the supply of water, energy,
and food), and the natural environment
as components of the social common
capital, the point is to create new capitalthrough activities by not only artists but
also experts (architects, scientists, andethnologists), with the cooperation of
local residents.
Besides reflecting diverse views, art
generates empathy with them among
viewers and nurtures powers of imagination toward new perspectives on theworld and things. This makes people feelsurprised, deeply moved, excited, andinspired, as well as the joy of being alive
and the sense of fulfillment that comesfrom profound sensibility and thought.
Infused with the energy of art, the ecological system of northern Okayama will betransformed into a topos that refreshes
people’s hearts and minds. This festival of residents in the forested part of“clear-skies country” will celebrate thistransformation.
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1. Area on the periphery of Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

1​​ place where natural and cultural assets intersect, chronicling history from the Edo
Aperiod (1603–1868) to the modern era.

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Kimsooja / Bianca Bondi / Masanobu Emi / Lucila Gradin / Umesh P K /Hideaki Kawashima / Smitha G S / Muhannad Shono / Yuko Someya /Giacomo Zaganelli / Asim Waqif / Moe Kato / Chiharu Koda / Yuka Mori /Saburo Ota / Rirkrit Tiravanija / Paola Besana / Tarek Atoui /Atsunobu Katagiri / Yuna Yagi

2. Green Hills Tsuyama area,
Tsuyama City
An expansive place of relaxation
for the community, dotted with cafés,
walking paths, and flower gardens.

Ernesto Neto
Green Hills Tsuyama

Sakushu Folk Crafts Museum

Shurakuen Garden

Josai Romance Hall

Former Tsuyama International
Hotel site（Shiroshita Square）

Tsuyama Wonder Museum

Joto’s Old Townhouses

Tsuyama Castle (Kakuzan Park)

Tsuyama Railroad Educational
MuseumPORT ART ＆ DESIGN TSUYAMA
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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Kimsoojaborn in 1957 in Daegu,
Korea, lives and works
in Seoul, New York andParisKimsooja, To Breathe, 2023
Site-specific installation consisting of diffraction grating film.
Installation view at Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, Paris, France, 2023
Photo: Jaeho Chong
Courtesy of Lafayette Group and Kimsooja StudioKimsooja graduated from Hongik University in Seoul in 1980 and went on to study at the same
university’s graduate school as well as at the École National des Beaux-Art in Paris. She is a multimedia artist whose conceptual works take Asian culture as their starting point and which haveearned her international acclaim since the 1990s. Her artistic treatment of women, immigrants,
traditional culture, and universal truths, as well as her grand views of the universe, are particularly notable. She is known for installations that cover the glass windows of buildings with diffraction grating film, and for wrapping objects in traditional Korean fabric bundles known as bottari.
The works she exhibits at the festival are from a series similar to “To Breathe – A Mirror Woman,”
which she displayed in natural light at the Crystal Palace of the Reina Sofía National Art Center in
Madrid in early 2006. All 2,188 windows of the spectacular, up to 8-meter-high Old Tsuyama
Fan-shaped Locomotive Depot will be covered with diffraction grating film. The natural lightentering the building will be converted into rainbow light using prisms with nanoscale scratches
in the shape of crosses, producing a spectrum of light in this site-specific installation work. With
the installation, the artist aims to use the non-physical material of light to express the structure of
the universe posited by the traditional Korean color spectrum (obangsaek) and the ancient East
Asian concept of the Five Phases. Kimsooja’s stained-glass works are on permanent display at theCathedral Saint-Ètienne de Metz, France, and at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in
Sydney, Australia.

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Bianca Bondi

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

born in Johannesburg,
South Africa in 1986,
lives and works in Paris

Bianca Bondi is a multimedia artist who uses
mutating materials such as crystallized salt
water and moss to incorporate the memoriesof places while creating narrative spaces under the theme of transformation. Her practice
involves the activation of mundane objects, ortheir elevation into spiritual beings, throughthe use of chemical reactions, most often bysalt water to form crystals. In addition to thesematerials, she works with old furniture andwallpaper and tapestries of her own design,
advocating the life of matter with an emphasis on interconnectivity, transience, and thecycles of life and death. Often site specific andpoetic, her works are very much connectedto the places in which they are to exist. Bondi
has taken an interest in forest medicine, a formof therapy developed in Japan and known formethods such as “forest bathing.” At this year’s
festival she will be presenting an installationthat binds the forest together with the venue,
the former Nakashima Hospital. A great varietyof herbs, moss, and other plants gathered in
the surrounding area will be placed throughout the venue, with visitors moving from one
room to the other as if they were walking
through a forest. The shelves of antique cabinets along the walls hold medical containers,
which are displayed in coexistence with theplants. In this installation the floor, ceiling,
and walls of the venue transform into a forest
landscape, and the aromas of the forest fill the
space. The work invites visitors to bathe in aromantic, magical forest set in a Western-stylebuilding from the Taisho era (1912–1926).

Bianca Bondi, Exotic Elixir, 2024, © ADAGP, Paris & JASPAR, Tokyo, 2024 E5710 / Rebecca Fanuele
Co-organizer: Italian Cultural Institute in Osaka

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Masanobu Emiborn in Okayama in
1947, lives and works in
Okayama

Masanobu Emi, Kaleidoscope

Masanobu Emi graduated from the Tokyo Junior College of Photography (the current Tokyo
Polytechnic University). He is Representative Director and President of Emi Photo Studio.
Founded in 1873, Emi Photo Studio has a collection of more than 10,000 precious photographs
in the form of glass photographic plates, the subjects of which are mainly the landscape andpeople of Tsuyama from the late Taisho era (1921–1926) to the early Showa era (1926–1989). Taken
by Tadashi Emi, the third owner of the studio, the photos were digitalized by Masanobu Emi, thefifth-generation owner, and are available for viewing on the studio’s website. While running his
studio, Emi has been producing works of stained glass for more than 40 years. He is also fascinated by the little worlds of lamps and kaleidoscopes and the magical glow of their colors, andmakes these items as well. Since getting on social media, Emi has been communicating withmany people inside and outside Japan, sharing tricks and techniques he learned from his longyears of trying different things in his pursuits. This time he will be exhibiting works including kaleidoscopes and presenting footage of the colorful, complex, and symmetrical patterns you see
when peeking into one of these devices. The similar experience provided by the camera and the
kaleidoscope, both of which use light to conjure up a distinctive visual sensation, is indicative of
the profound technical mastery the Emi family has achieved over a period exceeding 150 years.

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Lucila Gradinborn in San Carlos deBariloche, Argentina in
1981, lives and works in
Buenos Aires

Lucila Gradin, Chromatic Unfolding II, 2023
Natural dyes and mordant on wool and felt, 275 × 160 cm

Lucila Gradín is a graduate of the Argentine Universidad Nacional de las Artes (UNA). Following a
2011 fellowship at the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (CIA) in Buenos Aires, she is currently
collaborating with a team of women healers, doctors, philosophers, biologists, and others on aherbarium of medicinal and dye plants. Plants can be used not only for their colors in dyeing or
for their fibers in crafts such as weaving, but also for medical purposes such as with medicinal
herbs, as well as in magic. The artist approaches plants as a fountain of human knowledge andhas studied plants used for dyeing by way of various traditional textiles, myths, and folk tales.
She has a particular interest in collecting native plants and conducting experiments on theirproperties, such as their usefulness for dyeing. In Chromatic Unfolding II (2023) and Goldenrod
tautology (2020) she employs natural dyes to color materials such as felt, wool, and silk, which
are then elevated into works of art through processes including embroidery and weaving. In atime when ecosystems are being disrupted and transformed by invasive species, the works ofGradín, who focuses her research on native species, can be described as a pictorial mapping of
the existing ecosystems of her area. Furthermore, her work carries the suggestion that textile
traditions rooted in the history of a region, such as the Sakushu Kasuri of Tsuyama, also containsuch important knowledge.
https://www.instagram.com/lucilagradin/

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Umesh P K
born in India, lives andworks in India

Umesh P K, Moving into the Depths as it Revolves Around a Point, 2024

Umesh P K completed his Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Hyderabad Central University in2008. His interest in mythology, the history of representation, and spirituality feed his artistic
pursuit, and he often draws inspiration from the natural world around us and creates paintings
themed on the lost pathways between humans and nature. Drawing on his childhood in thestate of Kerala—the southernmost part of the Indian subcontinent, a land that stretches between
the biologically diverse Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea—he narrates a pictorial fiction of
an imagined geography, its rituals, and creation myths. He explains his creative practice as ameditative process. His subjects originate from his own personal mythology and are never bornout of thought, but rather appear as sudden visions. His new work, Moving into the Depths as it
Revolves Around a Point (2024), depicts a mysterious whirlpool in the middle of a deep forest,
spinning and descending into the depths. The work blends the mysteries of nature with innerreflection, evoking a deep connection with nature while inviting the viewer to plunge into an
unknown abyss.

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Hideaki Kawashimaborn in Aichi in 1969,
lives and works in Tokyo

After graduating from Tokyo Zokei University in
1991, Hideaki Kawashima underwent Buddhist
training at Enryakuji Temple for a period of two
years. He started his artistic career in 2001.
Self-consciousness has been a consistenttheme for Kawashima since the beginning of
his career, and he has dedicated himself todepicting faces and the delicate and complex
emotions that appear on them. His paintings
have been characterized by the exquisite gradation of faintly applied pale colors achieved
with acrylic paints, but in recent years he
has also been working with oil paints. This
year’s festival features two of Kawashima’s oil
paintings in vivid and warm colors, createdby overcoming a dislike of oil paints he felt
when he first started painting. In Guide, a girlis holding Kawashima by the hand and guiding him as they play in a park. The two figures
among the beautiful fresh greenery evoke thecomposition of traditional paintings, in which
the subjects are seen as pointillistic images
wandering happily into the forest. In Stream,a girl looks out over a rippling pond duringa picnic with friends and family at a nearbypark, and the water’s surface, along with theshores of the pond, appear as a metaphor forher future. These works are based on photographs taken by the girl’s parents and represented a challenge for Kawashima, who was
not accustomed to painting landscapes basedon photographs. Through the trees and waterin them, the works also express Kawashima’spresent state of mind, which in recent years
has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic
and the deaths of relatives and friends, making him aware of his own mortality, but also
by encounters and interaction with the young
children of his friends and their families.
https://www.instagram.com/
hideakikawashima69/

Hideaki Kawashima, Guide, 2023
oil, acrylic on canvas
194.5 × 162.0 cm
Photo: Kenji Takahashi
Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Smitha G S
born in in India , lives
and works in India

Smitha G S, Untitled, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas

Smitha G S is a self-taught artist influenced by childhood memories brimming with nature’s melodies. Her works emphasize animals and the intricate beauty of nature. While her pieces previously often sidelined human forms, as her style evolved during the 2010s, Smitha’s artworks began
resonating with societal themes such as a Nipah virus outbreak in the Indian state of Kerala, juxtaposing human vulnerabilities with the unpredictable realm of animals. The Covid-19 lockdown
marked another transformative phase, inspiring her to create a universe of happiness within theboundaries of her home. While her initial pieces celebrated the animal world, her post-Covid
creations started to weave in human figures, emphasizing the performing arts and rituals of the
Malabar region and their relation with nature. The works she presents at this year’s festival depict
humans coexisting with a wide variety of creatures in a multicolored forest. Her distinctive palette captures the meticulous and mysterious beauty of nature while expressing a sense of awe at
its power, far beyond the reach of human control.

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Muhannad Shono

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

born in 1977 in Riyadh,
KSA, lives and works in
Riyadh, KSA

Muhannad Shono, On Losing Meaning, 2024

Muhannad Shono received his B.A in Architecture from the King Fahd University of Petroleum
and Minerals in 2000. His work, unrestricted by scale, medium, concept, or technology, references cultural lore, spiritual texts, mythology, and urban legends. Informed by his family’s historyof migration, and interested in abandoned, uninhabited places, the artist explores notions of
non-belonging through a practice structured by storytelling. With his post-minimal black, white,and gray tonal ranges, he has resolved his work around the potential of the line and the void tocreate, both as a reference to his drawing practice and as a conceptual framework. In “On Losing
Meaning” (2021–), a four-legged robot moves randomly on sand, drawing and redrawing a variety of patterns. Through the continuous loss and creation of meaning caused by overlappinglines, the artist poses questions about the fluidity of language and the interpretation of symbols.
Meanwhile the robot itself, as it produces drawings that slowly move and transform as if they
were breathing, comes across like a living creature of sort, exploring and shaping the possibilities of new languages, symbols, and paintings.

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Yuko Someya

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

born in Chiba in 1980,
lives and works in Chiba

Yuko Someya, Neither Knowledge Nor Intention., 2023
Chinese ink, water color, pencil, lithograph ink, and Japanese paper on canvas, mounted on wood panel
52.5 × 68.5 cm / frame:54.5 × 70.5 cm
Photo: Kenji Tskahashi
Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery

Yuko Someya graduated from Tokyo Zokei University with a bachelor’s degree in painting in
2004, and from the Tokyo University of the Arts with a master’s degree in printmaking in 2006.
She captures familiar landscapes by relating them to aspects of life, death, childbirth, nature,and other fundamentals of existence gleaned from her own childhood memories and changes in
her life, creating a new and entirely original form of expression. Someya constructs her paintingsby drawing meticulous preliminary sketches in pencil, tracing them on painted washi paper toform molds, tearing or cutting out lines and shapes, and pasting them on the canvas in layers.
She completes her artistic worlds by drawing with a sharpened pencil and ink. At this year’s festival she will exhibit works featuring mountains, stars, the sky, and water seen in Okayama, depicted with sumi ink (mainly as stripes), a form of expression she has been researching for sometime. During an extended stay at her grandmother-in-law’s house in Yakage, Okayama, Someya
was surprised by how close she felt to nature. She painted The Sky, depicting how the movement of the sky and that of water in a river are so alike that they seem the same, and Neither
Knowledge Nor Intention., which portrays clouds, rain, and lightning on a mountain range, toexpress the beauty of nature untouched by human hands. Also on display will be seven otherworks, including Twilight, which depicts a swirling starry sky seen by the artist through a telescope during a visit to an observatory in Biseicho. Someya’s works reveal a deep relationship withnature while reflecting her own inner explorations.
https://www.instagram.com/some8yuko/?hl=ja
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Giacomo Zaganelli

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

born in 1983, lives andworks in Florence andBerlinGiacomo Zaganelli, Ping Pong Platz, Oshiage, 2023

Giacomo Zaganelli is an artist, curator, and activator of artistic-cultural projects aimed at thecommunity. Through participatory exhibitions and workshops, he has worked with local residents
and government agencies to revitalize vacant lots and other neglected areas. Zaganelli and his
partner Silvia Piantini spent about a month in the northern part of Okayama in 2022 and 2023,
visiting Tsuyama city government offices, local communities, and schools to advance their project through dialogue with the residents. In Tsuyama Ping Pong Platz, they created an outdoor
table tennis field open to the public on the former site of the International Hotel, which is locatedin the center of Tsuyama’s cultural zone and had been used as a parking lot. According to theartist, public outdoor table tennis tables in Germany function as meeting points for citizens, whogather not only to play ping-pong but also to eat and drink at the tables on a daily basis. Three
concrete ping-pong tables designed by the artist and built in collaboration with local craftsmen,
as well as benches made from local wood, create a platform for amicable communication. The
tables are set up permanently in Tsuruyama Park, harmonizing with the landscape of the park’s
stone walls and trees and inviting visitors and local residents to interact through table tennis.
https://www.giacomozaganelli.com/

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Asim Waqif
born 1978 in Hyderabad,
India, lives and works
in India

Asim Waqif, Improvise, 2022
Site specific installation for the Kochi Muziris Biennale
Bamboo, woven pandanus leaves, and ropes
Photo: Kochi Muziris Biennale

Asim Waqif studied architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, and began his
artistic career after developing an interest in the manual and improvisational work he observedin the field. He has been working with bamboo since early on, creating large, interactive installations that combine traditional techniques with new technologies. For this year's festival, Waqif
created Bamboo Heartbeat, a more than five-meter-high installation, with local craftspeople
including bamboo artisan Yukio Hiramatsu and the local bamboo company Takekichi Co. The
venue, Tsuruyama Park, is a park built on the site of the former Tsuyama Castle. A structure ofbamboo logs put together in an improvised manner rises against the backdrop of intricate, up to
10-meter-high stone ramparts. Inside the structure, meticulously woven bamboo strands form adynamic, streamlined decoration, and viewers can strike a bamboo drum to make sounds. The
work stimulates the senses of sight, touch, and hearing. The bold yet subtle use of bamboo, anatural material common throughout Asia, in a spatial construction crosses the boundaries between art and architecture, giving rise to new ideas for the use of bamboo as a resource.
https://asimwaqif.com/

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Moe Katoborn in Saitama in
1988, lives and works in
OkayamaMoe Kato, Dozing Off, 2022 Photo: SATOSHI TAKASE

Moe Kato graduated with a master’s degree (Ph.D.) from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tokyo
University of the Arts in 2014. She majored in lacquer art and studied mainly mother-of-pearl
work and dry lacquer techniques. In September 2014, she moved to the city of Niimi in Okayama
Prefecture to help revitalize the local community through lacquer art. She combines her creative
activities with winemaking. Animals have been a consistent motif in Kato’s art to date. She uses
lacquer to skillfully express her impressions of animals she encounters, such as a friendly cat orvarious wild animals that she comes across on her walks. “Dozing Off” (2022), the work she isexhibiting at the festival, depicts a fox curled up and slumbering under the autumn leaves on acold day in the mountains. The artist used a clay model to make a plaster mold, which she thencovered with layers of lacquer and linen using a dry lacquer technique. The upper half of the
body is enveloped with local kojiro washi paper and colored with lacquer, while the lower halfis coated with layers of transparent lacquer to express the sunlight filtering through the trees
in autumn. Kato’s work reflects a deep connection with nature and a distinctive aesthetic thatmakes the most of local materials. She is the recipient of major awards including the Silver Prize,
Art Division, at the International Urushi Exhibition Ishikawa 2020, and Second Prize at the 22nd
Okayama Art and Culture Awards (2021).
https://www.instagram.com/katoh_moe/

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Chiharu Koda
born in Okayama, lives
and works in Okayama

Chiharu Koda, Kocho —withered—, 2011

Chiharu Koda earned her Bachelor of Art and Design degree from the Faculty of Arts andIndustrial Design at Okayama Prefectural University in 2005 and studied pottery techniques at
the Tajimi City Pottery Design And Technical Center, from where she graduated in 2008. She
developed an interest in the impact materials have on a space through her research into theproperties of glaze. In 2020, the graduated from the Sculpture Department at the State Academyof Fine Arts Karlsruhe in Germany, and is currently expanding her activities with a focus on
Germany. Focusing on the theme of materials and space, she creates sculptures based on materials she has researched and installation works that make use of technology. She describes
her 2011 work Kocho as “a piece in which a plant grows from the head of a bird,” and indeed
elements resembling the shoot of a plant and the body of a shellfish extend vertically fromweathered, dry soil. The characteristic bark-like texture of the ceramic material was created bylayering clay using a technique called coiling, expressing the passage of time in the form of years
and growth rings. The work has a unique cavity at its center, filled with power and consciously
shaped to create life, and explores the relationship between life and form while harnessing thecharacteristics of its material. Koda is the recipient of awards including the Okayama Prefecture
Mr. I Award for Nurturing Emerging Artists (2008) and the Grand Shu-Ou Foundation Award for
Art Travel (2012).
https://chiharukoda.com/
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Yuka Moriborn in Osaka in 1991,
lives and works in Kyoto

Yuka Mori studied at the École Nationale
Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris as an
exchange student in 2015 and received amaster’s degree in Nihonga (Japanese-style
painting) from the Kyoto City University ofArts in 2016. She uses typical Nihonga lines
and pigments to depict how the body andenvironment contain each other and remain
in fluid change, based on her own experienceand sensibility. She began sketching plants in2019 and produces paintings and drawings
inspired by the corporeality of plants. For thisyear’s festival, Mori focused on the approximately 1,000 water lilies that grow in the pondat the Shurakuen Garden, and was inspiredby the fact that these plants, whose flowers
float on the water, reproduce by anchoring
their roots to the soil under the surface andspreading their underground stems horizontally. In Rhizome, her new work, nearly theentire canvas is covered with water lilies seen
beneath the surface, depicting the way the human body is connected to their undergroundstems. The work examines the connection between plant life and human corporeality, whichcannot be captured visually. Mori’s painting
suggests that just as water lilies are morethan only their beautiful flowers and leaves,the human body is an ecological entity that
continuously interacts with its surroundings inunseen ways.

Yuka Mori, Engulfing Bodies, 2023
Japanese paper, Mineral pigment
31.8 × 41cm

https://yukamori.com/

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Saburo Ota
born in Yamagata in
1950, lives and works in
Okayama

Saburo Ota, Scenes in a Garden, 2024

Saburo Ota graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Tsuruoka College with a degree
in mechanical engineering in 1971. He moved from Tokyo to the city of Tsuyama, where his wife isfrom, in 1994. He began producing artwork in 1980 and is noted for his SEED PROJECT, for which
he mounted seeds he collected on stamp-like squares of washi paper. Ota’s works showcase
aspects of daily life that tend to be overlooked, posing questions about the places and time underlying them. Displayed at this year’s festival will be pieces including Shuraku Botanical Garden,
a project to attach nameplates to plants and trees growing in the Shurakuen Garden; Garden
Scene, a video work composed of footage of a persimmon tree and a tangerine tree growing in agarden near Ota’s home, which he observed over a year and captured on film; and FALL, a videoin which a persimmon tree bears fruit in autumn, with the fruit ripening and eventually falling to
the ground. The Drop of Life: Persimmon Jelly is also based on Ota’s idea, with a recipe createdby students of the culinary arts society of Tsuyama’s Mimasaka University, and lets viewers takehome persimmon seeds and grow a new tree from them. Ota is the recipient of awards including
the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Regional Cultural Merits
Award (2018) and the Okayama Prefecture Cultural Award (2021). His works are included in thecollections of museums such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Museum ofContemporary Art Tokyo, the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden, and the National Museum of Modern
and Contemporary Art, Korea (Seoul).
https://www.otasaburo.com/
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Rirkrit Tiravanija

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

born in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, lives andworks in NY, Berlin,
Chiang Mai

Courtesy of Rirkrit Tiravanija

Rirkrit Tiravanija is known for his rejection of the conventional exhibition format and his presentation of social exchanges through the sharing of everyday activities such as cooking, eating, andreading. He is a professor at the School of the Arts at Columbia University and served as artistic
director of the Okayama Art Summit 2022. “Untitled 2024 (to find water look for forests)” comprises the two aspects of crafts and food from northern Okayama Prefecture, which Tiravanija
researched in 2023 and developed an interest in. One is a noren curtain he created in collaboration with Yoko Kano, a dyeing artist from the city of Maniwa, and the other a lunchbox in theform of an artwork, produced with local ingredients together with chef Tomoyori Hirayama ofbistro CACASHII and the Marui supermarket in the city of Tsuyama. This project, in which visitors
dine together in a space partitioned by the large noren, decorated with silhouettes of selecttrees from the Shurakuen Garden, is intended to gently blend the food and cultural resources ofnature-rich northern Okayama Prefecture into the time shared with the audience, inviting mutual
enjoyment.

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Paola Besanaborn in 1935 in Italy,
died in 2021

Paola Besana, Una Strada Lunga, 1971
Co-organizer Italian Cultural Institute in Osaka

Paola Besana studied under fiber artist Lily Blumenau (1912–1976) in New York in 1961-62, and in
1962–1963 with textile artist Trude Guermonprez (1910–1976) at the California College of Arts andCrafts. In 1968 she settled in Milan and opened her own studio, Studio di Tessitura Paola Besana,a workshop and center for research, production, and teaching. She worked in textile design for
more than 30 years, covering industrial textiles as well as work in fields including architectureand fashion. Her work can be viewed at the Paola Besana Archives in Milan. Fascinated by thetechniques of weaving, which developed under specific social and cultural circumstances, she
strived to create works exploring three-dimensionality. Believing that knowledge of the history of
weaving enables creative development, she explored and reinterpreted weaving techniques thatwere being lost. She also drew lines between popular and folk culture and abstract expression by
exploring the structural and expressive possibilities offered by the contrasts and combinationsof weaving techniques, materials, and colors. On view at the festival will be “Una strada lunga(Long Road)” (1978), a three-dimensional work that combines a wood structure with textiles, aswell as samples of Besana’s original patterns and accompanying instructional drawings. This willbe the first time that her work is presented in Japan in such variety. In Besana’s art, the geometricabstraction of modernism is enriched by handicraft and soft, delicate yarns; her work acts as aforetelling of the contemporary re-evaluation of the textile form.
https://www.paolabesana.it/e-index.html

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1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Tarek Atouiborn in Beirut, Lebanon,
1980, lives and works
in ParisTarek Atoui, The Wind Harvester,Thailand Biennale at Chiang Rai 2023
© Wanchai Phutthawarin

Tarek Atoui explores the medium of sound and the way it gives shape to perceptions throughdynamic installations, experimental acoustic environments, and collaborative performances.
While drawing on the distinctive Arab culture of music in his native Lebanon, he works withcomposers and craftsmen from different countries to invent complex instruments with strong
sculptural halos, testing the unique ways in which elements transmit and reflect sound. The instruments created as part of one of Atoui’s projects, WITHIN, offer a tactile experience of sound,can be played by anyone, including people with hearing impairments, and allow their player toperceive sound with their body. At the festival, the artist will combine numerous instruments,
custom-made electronics, and computer programs he has created over the years in the tatami
room of a traditional townhouse to create a soundscape. Within this space, Atoui presents music
and technology as powerful elements of expression and identity while alluding to contemporarysocial and political circumstances. The participation and experience of the viewers makes foran essential element in the multi-sensory environment produced within the house, which has
been extended and remodeled repeatedly from the latter half of the 1800s through the Showa
period (1926–1989). Atoui’s works are part of several public collections, including those of theTate Modern, the Guggenheim, and the New National Museum of Monaco, as well as the Frenchnational collection.

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Atsunobu Katagiri

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City
born in Osaka in 1973, lives and works in Osaka

Atsunobu Katagiri, LIGHT OF FLOWERS, 2021

Atsunobu Katagiri is a flower arranger/artist and the master of the Misasagi Ikebana school.
He studied in the United States after graduating from middle school, and returned to Japan in
1994. He succeeded to the aforementioned position of ikebana master in 1997. After the Great
East Japan Earthquake of 2011 he visited Fukushima Prefecture, where he produced and photographed works conveying his hopes for the recovery of areas affected by the catastrophe at the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station. He documented these works in the book Sacrifice: The
Ikebana of Regeneration, Offered to the Future, which was published in 2015. His works covera wide range of themes, extending from arrangements of little wild plants to installations in thevein of avantgarde art. He delves into the animistic aspect that informs the roots of ikebana, andaspires to gain insights into the vitality of plants and human beings’ relationship with them fromthe perspective of cultural anthropology. At this year’s festival Katagiri will present an installation
using a great volume of wheat grown in the city of Tsuyama and harvested in July 2024. The work
will be displayed in the earthen-floor space of a large traditional townhouse that once belonged
to a local merchant. Here, through the interaction of two timelines—that of wheat, a plant thathas been eaten in Japan since the prehistoric Yayoi period, and the historical space of the townhouse with its traditional kamado stove as well as the relationship of this space with plants—theartist will nudge us to reconsider our relationship with nature and explore paths toward thefuture. Greeting visitors at the entrance to the townhouse will be ikebana arrangements createdwith plants gathered in the surrounding area.
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

1. Area on the periphery of
Tsuyama Castle, Tsuyama City

Yuna Yagiborn in 1980, live andworks in Kyoto

Yuuna Yagi, Light, 2021
Cyanotype print on Japanese paper, Kakejiku
W634 × H957 mm© Takeshi Asano-KYOTOGRAPHIE 2021

Yuna Yagi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Parsons School of Design
and is based in Kyoto. She produces mainly photographic works that induce a transformationof awareness from multiple perspectives and angles through the experience of seeing. For thisyear’s festival Yagi focused on Mimasaka Bancha, a local bancha tea that has long been a favorite
in the region and that she came across while visiting the northern part of Okayama Prefecture.
Drawing on her experience of witnessing the process of drying tea leaves under the open sky
at Kobayashi Hokoen, a tea producer that remains committed to this traditional method, Yagi
will present a work featuring Mimasaka Bancha in a tea room. Okayama and Kyoto, where theartist lives, are connected by the legacy of the twelfth-century Buddhist priest Eisai, who was anative of Bitchu Province (present-day Okayama Prefecture). Eisai, who is credited with founding
the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, brought back tea seeds from his travels in China and wrote
the Kissa Yojoki (“Drinking Tea for Health”), Japan’s first book on tea cultivation and its medical
benefits. He is thus considered the founder of the tea tradition in Japan, and he popularized thedrink throughout the country. A manuscript and woodblocks of the book are in the possession of
Ryosokuin, a temple founded by Eisai’s disciple Ryusan on the grounds of the historic Kenninji in
Kyoto, and Yagi visited the temple while conducting research. She aims to transcend a numberof different boundaries with her work, which highlights tea from a folk perspective in line with
the Kissa Yojoki and in contrast to the Zen-inspired tea ceremony. In the self-transcendent spaceof a tea room, the artist presents a sensation of being at one with others, nature, and the times,
transcending different eras, places, and cultures. Yagi is the recipient of awards including theGrand Prix in the Kyotographie Portfolio Review (2016), and her works are in the collection of the
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

Ernesto Neto

2. Green Hills Tsuyama area,
Tsuyama City

born in 1964 in Rio deJaneiro, lives and worksin Rio de Janeiro

Ernesto Neto, chantdance, 2023
Photo: Wanchai Phutthawarin
Courtesy of Thailand Biennale Chiang Rai 2023'; Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro;
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and Los Angeles

Ernesto Neto’s work deals with relationships, whether between materials, forces, or beings.
The curves created by the materials he uses are one of the characteristic mediating elements
between gravity and balance in these relationships. While referring to the legacy of avantgarde
movements such as Neoconcretism, Minimalism, and Arte Povera, Neto understands the bodyas a fundamental political issue in his poetic work. In 2014, he initiated an artistic exchange with
the indigenous Huni Kuin people of Brazil, experiencing their rituals and shamanic traditions.
Spiritual life, the healing that comes from being in harmony with nature, and the wisdom andpeace bestowed by a deep connection to the energies of the earth inspired Neto to rediscover
the strength and dynamism of nature. This experience had a profound influence on his creative
work. The festival will feature an installation of crocheted nets made of recycled fiber, suspended from bamboo posts to form a canopy. The netting encases ceramic bowls, which visitors cantouch when stepping inside the work. This time, at the artist’s request, visitors are asked to enter
the installation barefoot. Beneath the wide sky and on the expansive lawn of the venue, Green
Hills, Neto’s work draws the viewer into a meditative state, reconnecting the cultural body withthe spirit of life. His other works are in the collections of museums around the world, including
the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Inhotim Institute (Brumadinho, Brazil), and the Museum ofModern Art (New York City).

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3

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi MOCA, Nagi Town
The world’s first interactive art museum, in which buildings
and artworks exist in near-permanent harmony.​​A “miracle” townwith one of the highest fertility rates in Japan

4

Mirai Moriyama / AKI INOMATA / Arata Isozaki /Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani / Leandro Erlich

Nagi MOCA

Symbol Road

Spark Nagi Indoor Gateball Field

4. Makido Cave, Ikurado Cave area, Niimi City​​An area of natural formative beauty created over the course of millennia.

Anri Sala / Keita Sugiura / NINAGAWA Mika with EiM / Michael Lin

Ikurado Cave

Fureai Center Maki

Makido Cave

Manabi no Mori Niimi Library(Sub - Venue)
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

Mirai Moriyama

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi
MOCA, Nagi Town
born in 1984, lives and works between Kobe and Tokyo

Mirai Moriyama, A Scene from Yokozen Kabuki Practice, 2023

Mirai Moriyama has won several film awards for his work as an actor. His cross-disciplinary career has included performing a solo dance requiem at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020
Olympic Games, directing the Re:Incarnation (2021) performance at Kiyomizudera Temple in
Kyoto, and launching and operating the Artist in Residence KOBE facility, opened in 2022. Thistime, Moriyama will organize the Sanbutaro Festival, a performance event aiming to rethink therelationship between community and culture, on the Nagi Symbol Road that looks out toward
Mt. Nagi. Sanbutaro is the name of a giant who appears in a legend told in Nagi, and the name isalso used to refer to folk tales about this giant. During his visit to Nagi, Moriyama met with local
artists including practitioners of Yokosen Kabuki, an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Propertyof Okayama Prefecture, and Kabukunza, a drumming group based in Nagi. Through collaboration with these artists, Moriyama created a new Kabuki play, dance, and performance based on
Sanbutaro to connect with the community. The festival will be co-hosted by the Agriculture andForestry Festival and ARTdeMEAT, two events that highlight food products from Nagi. Combining
music, theater, dance, and food, the festival will be shared with participants and the local community to express gratitude and reverence for nature in the shape of Mt. Nagi. Additionally, an archival recording of the work will be exhibited in the lounge of the Nagi Museum of ContemporaryArt.
https://www.miraimoriyama.com/
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi
MOCA, Nagi Town

AKI INOMATA
born in Tokyo in 1983,
lives and works in Tokyo

AKI INOMATA, Thinking of Yesterday’s Sky, 2022– ongoing

Aki Inomata earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Tokyo University of the Arts’ Department ofInter-Media Art in 2008. She is a project associate professor at Digital Hollywood University and avisiting researcher at Waseda University. Questioning the anthropocentric perspective, her practice centers on collaboration with the activities of non-human creatures and natural phenomena.
Her major works include “Why Not Hand Over a ‘Shelter’ to Hermit Crabs?” (2009–), in which she
gave hermit crabs transparent shells modeled after New York and other cities and watched themmove from one shell to the other—a commentary on contemporary questions revolving aroundissues such as nationality and territory. “Thinking of the Yesterday’s Sky” (2022–) is a drinkable
sculpture for which a 3D printer is used to reproduce the previous day’s sky in water poured
into a glass. It sprung from a realization the artist had while looking out the window during theCovid-19 pandemic and being fascinated by the clouds and patterns in the sky that never looked
the same as yesterday. Fascinated by the vastness of the sky in Nagi and by how the clouds movein a distinctive way in this mountainous region, Inomata spent time in the area working on her
artwork in 2022. She developed the liquid-3D printer she uses to create the clouds herself, following a long process of trial and error. The clouds in her glasses change shape and eventuallydisappear with the passage of time, serving as devices for sharing the transience and irreplaceability of the everyday. Aki Inomata’s works are included in collections such as those of MoMAin New York, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the Art Gallery of South
Australia, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi
MOCA, Nagi Town

Arata Isozakiborn in Oita, Japan in
1931, died in 2022

Arata Isozaki, Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993
Watercolor on paper
17.4 × 18.0 cm© Estate of Arata Isozaki

Arata Isozaki established his own atelier in 1963, going on to design works of architecture suchas the main branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Barcelona Olympic
Stadium and to work in urban planning on projects including the urban design of Zhengzhou
City, Henan Province, in China. He designed the Nagi MOCA building, one of the festival’s venues, in 1994, achieving a bold fusion of architecture and art by selecting three artists to contribute site-specific artworks to the building. He worked together with sculptor Anish Kapoor on Ark
Nova (2011–13), a mobile concert hall conceived to tour regions affected by the Great East Japan
Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. This donut-shaped inflatable dome, 18 meters high, 30 meters
wide, and 36 meters long, consists of red polyester membrane and is a giant movable space.
In addition to collaborating with artists, Isozaki himself created the participatory installation
Incubation Process (1962) as a response to the Metabolist movement in architecture. The work
is composed of nails, wire, and plaster on a board with an aerial photograph of Tokyo pasted
onto it. At the Milan Triennale in 1968, Isozaki presented the installation Electric Labyrinth. He
also worked actively as an artist and curator, curating exhibitions including “MA – Space-Time inJapan.” The exhibition at this year’s festival will pay homage to Isozaki, who passed away in 2022,
featuring drawings, architectural models, spatial photographs, interviews, and video footage
to recount his involvement in art and architecture. Isozaki was the recipient of the 2019 Pritzker
Prize.
https://isozaki.co.jp/
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi
MOCA, Nagi Town

Ryuichi Sakamoto:born in 1952 in Tokyo,
died in 2023,
Shiro Takataki:born in 1963 in Nara,
lives and works in Kyoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro takatani, TIME-déluge, 2023
Installation view of the exhibition Ryuichi Sakamoto: SOUND AND TIME at M WOODS in Chengdu, China
Photo: Shiro Takatani

Musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and artist Shiro Takatani of the Dumb Type collective first collaborated in 1999, when they worked together on LIFE, Sakamoto’s first opera. They joined hands fora great number of media art and installation works after that, and at the 2021 Holland Festival
presented the world premiere of the stage production TIME, a piece they conceived and created
together and for which Sakamoto wrote all the music. Pursuing the potential of non-linear formsof expression as intended by Sakamoto, they constructed a stage space by seamlessly connecting elements of installation, performance, sound, and visual art. Water flowing on the stage, andMayumi Miyata crossing it while playing the sho symbolize nature (physis), while Min Tanaka’s
figure, in his failed attempts to overcome nature, stands for humanity (logos). The festival willfeature the video and sound installation TIME-déluge (2023), which is based on TIME and will be
displayed in the “Earth” room at the Nagi Museum Of Contemporary Art. Slow-motion imagesof flooding water captured by a high-speed camera are projected onto a 2-meter-high, 6-meter-wide LED video wall installed over a calm basin of water, and accompanied by the sound of aflute played by Rokurobyoe Fujita, the 11th head of the Fujita Noh flute school, who passed awayin 2018. The tones will resonate off a string of stainless-steel wire arcs by Aiko Miyawaki installedin the same space, inviting the viewer to reflect on art and nature.
Ryuichi Sakamoto: https://www.sitesakamoto.com/
Shiro Takatani: http://shiro.dumbtype.com/
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Press Release | 2024.9.2

Leandro Erlich

3. Area in the vicinity of Nagi
MOCA, Nagi Town

born in Argentina in
1973, lives and works
between Paris, Buenos
Aires and Montevideo

Leandro Erlich, The Nature Above (conceptual drawing), 2024

Raised in a family of architects—his father, aunt, and brother are also architects—Leandro Erlich
creates visual and experiential spaces out of orthodox components, just like architects design
spaces by combining elements such as walls, windows, and doors. His works, however, suchas “Swimming Pool” (2004) in the collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,
Kanazawa, do not stop at the level of space, but have the power to transform the viewer's perception of reality itself. This time, Erlich will present The Nature Above, a 300-square-meter forest installation inside the Spark Nagi indoor gateball field. A September 2023 visit to the venue,
with its trussed ceiling and huge, pillarless interior, inspired Erlich to conceive of this work, whichrevisits the often-overlooked aspect of a natural landscape and emphasizes its importance. As
viewers cross a suspension bridge surrounded by forest, they see some 300 trees suspended
from the ceiling directly above their heads. Meanwhile, mirrors under the bridge invert the space,achieving a sense of floating in the air, and the primordial presence of nature emerges from a
new perspective. Erlich’s works are in the collections of museums including the Museo de Arte
Moderno de Buenos Aires, the Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the 21stCentury Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
https://www.leandroerlich.art/

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Anri Sala

4. Makido Cave, Ikurado Cavearea, Niimi City

born in Albania in 1974,
lives and works in
FranceAnri Sala, Time No Longer, 2021
Computer-generated imagery, multichannel sound, dynamic lights 13 min
Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery
Produced with the support of [N.A!] Project
Credits line for the images : Exhibition views from “Time No Longer” at Bourse de Commerce, 2022
Courtesy of Anri Sala & Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection© Anri Sala / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Photo: Andrea RossettiAnri Sala constructs works that focus on the intersections of images, music, and space andexplore the interplay between the visual and auditory senses. Many of his works are rooted in ahistorical or social context and are concerned with individual and collective memories and how
they are experienced. His art is designed to evoke a sense of unease or to inspire new perceptions in the viewer through the subtle displacement or synchronization of sight and sound. Sala
is also committed to exploring the physical and emotional aspects of music by working with
instruments and collaborating with musicians. This time he will present an installation inside the
Ikurado Cave, a 1,200-meter-long cavern with a 90-meter difference in elevation, and a designated Natural Monument of Okayama Prefecture. In this interactive work, the viewer is given a
backpack to carry while making their way through the cave staged by Sala. Inside, sound andlight elements react to the viewer, creating an immersive auditory and visual experience, as if
you were exploring an unknown cavern. At the end of the road, a video work is displayed as theclimax of the installation. This work offers a novel sensory experience in keeping with the timespace of a limestone cave formed by nature over the course of eons.

33Press Release | 2024.9.2

4. Makido Cave, Ikurado Cavearea, Niimi City

Keita Sugiuraborn in Okayama in
1980, lives and works in
Okayama

Keita Sugiura is a photo artist. After graduating from high school, he went on to collegewith the intention of becoming a teacher, but
an encounter with the Provoke movement ofphotographic expression, whose members
once included Takuma Nakahira and Daido
Moriyama, prompted him to take up photography. Sugiura is particularly fond of taking photographs in Okayama, where he was born andbred, and continues to explore the theme ofconnections between people and nature. He
is particularly interested in the strange formsof nature created by humans, and is currently
focusing on photographing the man-madeforests in the mountains of the city of Niimi.
His exhibition at the festival features six photographs from Niimi Mountains, a series depicting those mountains. Since distant antiquity,
people have considered mountains sacred fortheir governance of the weather. Sugiura too
has felt a close relationship with the mountains, but they have also been objects of fear
and awe for him. The surprise he felt when helearned that the Niimi mountains were in factcovered by planted forests and had thus “lost”
their divinity served as the impetus for his
work. His photos of the peaks at night, theirdense growth of trees, and the serenity thatpervades the landscape, taken with a large-format camera, correspond to our idea of natural
mountains. This nature, however, is the product of human intervention; a fact that encourages deep reflection on the impact of humanactivities on the global environment. Sugiura is
the recipient of awards including the Okayama
Prefecture Mr. I Award for Nurturing Emerging
Artists (2009) and the Fukutake Cultural
Encouragement Award (2010) from the
Fukutake Education and Culture Foundation.

Keita Sugiura, From Niimi Mountains, 201734

Press Release | 2024.9.2

NINAGAWA Mika with EiM

4. Makido Cave, Ikurado Cavearea, Niimi City

Exhibition View of Mika Ninagawa Exhibition: Eternity in a Moment (TOKYO NODE, 2023–2024)

Mika Ninagawa is a photographer and film director. Her wide-ranging activities encompass workin fields including video and spatial installation as part of the EiM creative team, which she established together with data scientist Hiroaki Miyata and set designer ENZO.Through her work,
Ninagawa has elevated the fleeting beauty of everyday life into something eternal. The world she
creates leaves an unforgettable and powerful impression on the viewer with its strong contrasts
and vivid colors. Dwelling in the Abyss, Dreaming of the Other Side is a large-scale installation
work set in a limestone cave. It transcends the boundaries of reality through the process ofentering another world, evoking emotions deep within those who experience it. The viewer is led
into a space enveloped in blue light, and then swallowed up by a red expanse beyond it, filledwith hundreds of spider lily flowers. The silence of this mysterious space at the far end of the installation resonates with the red flowers that in Buddhism symbolize the world beyond ours. Set
in the Mankido cave that the writers Tekkan and Akiko Yosano described as “a bizarre sight; like aroad to the underworld,” Ninagawa’s work adopts the limestone cavern shaped by nature as a gigantic stage to present a singular sensory experience in which the past and present, dreams andreality, intersect like on a journey through some nether realm. Going beyond mere visual beauty,
the installation affords viewers an opportunity to reflect on their own existence and outlook onlife and death.
https://mikaninagawa.com/
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4. Makido Cave, Ikurado Cavearea, Niimi City

Michael Lin
born in Tokyo in 1964,
lives and works in Taipei
and Brussels

Michael Lin, Gathering, 2021

Michael Lin turns away from painting as an object of contemplation toward one of painting as abounded, physical space, one we can settle into and inhabit. He orchestrates monumental painting installations that re-conceptualize and reconfigure public spaces. Born in Japan and raised in
Taiwan and the U.S., he returned to Taiwan in the early 1990s and began his artistic career there.
By enlarging traditional Taiwanese textiles used in everyday life and painting them in public
spaces, he has established a form of pictorial expression that transfers the meaning of these patterns. He arrived at this form after exploring his own identity and means of expression as an artist
living in a different cultural sphere. Through research, Lin incorporates the traditions and cultural
motifs of the region in which he works into his art, as he does with the characteristics of specificspaces and their relationship to a place. This time, Lin will present a work inspired by a book of
illustrations on kusaki-zome plant dyeing (by Kichisaburo Kuriyama, second-generation artisanof the Kuriyama workshop), which was shown to him by the owner of a kimono store he visitedwhile conducting research in the city of Niimi. The work will be placed in the atrium leading fromthe second to the third floor of the public library building serving as the venue and will remainin place after the festival, adding a new element to the building. Lin’s works are on permanent
display at several museums in Japan, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,
Kanazawa, the Towada Art Center, and ALTERNATIVE-STATE in Beppu.
https://www.ateliermichaellin.com/projects
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5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City
An area home to the GREENable HIRUZEN tourism and cultural facility, where sustainable values come to life.

Katsukichi Higashi / Shiori Higashiyama
Rinko Kawauchi / Yoshihiko Ueda /Kazuyo Sejima

Katsuyama Historical Preservation
District, etc（Sub - Venue）

GREENable HIRUZEN

6. Okutsu area, Kagamino Town
A place of beautiful, crystal-clear water and spectacular seasonal foliage in autumn,
with wondrous valley views.

Chien-Chung Liao
Jukan Tateisi

Okutsukei Valley

Okutsu Promotion Center

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Katsukichi Higashi

5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City

born in Oita in 1908,
died in 2007

Katsukichi Higashi worked as a woodman fromhis teenage years. After retiring, he took up
residence in a nursing home where, at the ageof 83, he began painting in earnest. Over a period of 16 years until his death at 99, he mademore than 100 watercolor paintings based onlandscape photographs he saw in newspapers
and magazines. His paintings mainly depict
mountain and rural landscapes centering on
the town of Yufuin, and are characterized
by the unique perspective on nature he developed working in the forest for many longyears. This year’s festival will feature several of
his works depicting forests, selected from his
oeuvre of more than 100 paintings. The simple
and plain forms of works such as “Oni Sugi
(Demon Cedar)” and “Mt. Yufu from Kawanishi”
capture the essence of forests and satoyama
landscapes with their strong lines and clear
composition. These canvases convey theartist’s deep affection for and insight into thetrees and landscapes depicted, as if he waslooking at them from the inside. Higashi’s
works have been exhibited at venues including
the Hita Civic Cultural Hall (in 2009) and theTokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (2001). Forest
makes up some 80 percent of the municipalityof Maniwa, where forestry has long been a significant industry. Higashi’s work, which shows
forests and humans coexisting peacefully, will
be displayed at a venue built with cross-laminated timber from Maniwa. Katsukichi
Higashi’s works are held by the Yufuin Art
Stock Collection.

Katsukichi Higashi, Oni Sugi (Demon Cedar), 2004, Yufuin Art Stock Collection

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Shiori Higashiyama

5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City

born in Hyogo in 1990,
lives and works in Tokyo

Shiori Higashiyama, Boundary line, 2021

Shiori Higashiyama received her master’s degree from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2016. She
creates paintings mainly with colored pencils and watercolors on paper, drawing inspirationfrom personal lives and pursuits she finds in old letters and diaries collected at flea markets andauctions. In many of her works the picture is divided into a number of cells, with objects such as
trees, flowers, and tents depicted repeatedly with detailed brush strokes in each one. By giving
each cell a different perspective, she achieves a multilayered landscape in which different perspectives coexist, representing the coexistence of diverse entities. The three works on view at
this year’s festival are “Formation Chart” (2023) and “Boundary line” (2021), in which trees andother organic motifs are depicted in linearly divided cells, as well as “Dimensions” (2023), which
departs from geometric organization by featuring a net-like, organic cell design. Colors including green, blue, and brown form the basis for her systematic images, in which various elementsof greenery (forests) and cities are combined to achieve a fun and intellectual, puzzle-like impression. As if echoing the ever-changing exhibition space, composed of a series of triangulargalleries, the works pose questions about the ambiguous nature of the fluid boundaries between
individuals and between nature and humans, which have both internal and external effects.

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Rinko Kawauchi

5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City

born in Shiga in 1972,
lives and works in Chiba

Rinko Kawauchi, Untilted, 2024

Rinko Kawauchi’s work is characterized by soft light and hues, consistently capturing the mystery, brilliance, fragility, and power of life. Her restrained, lyrical style conveys the minute andmicroscopic, elevating the everyday into something sublime by connecting each moment toeternity. In the unstable and ambiguous present, in which life and death coexist, Kawauchi’squietly empathetic depiction of how all things on Earth are connected makes for a powerful
message. Beginning in 2023, Kawauchi visited Okayama Prefecture several times in preparation
for this festival, taking photographs of places and phenomena such as the controlled burningof the Hiruzen Highlands in the municipality of Maniwa, fireflies in Hokubo, the Fudo waterfall
in the village of Shinjo, and the Hadaka Matsuri (“Naked Festival”) in the city of Okayama. She
will be exhibiting 36 new works, including prints, works on lightweight pongee fabric, and video
pieces. For the artist, seas of clouds, waterfalls, and the movement and energy of the people atthe Hadaka Matsuri are “momentary sparkles of life” that embody the cosmology of the region.
Kawauchi is the recipient of prizes including the 27th Kimura Ihei Photography Award in 2002
and the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the Sony World Photography Awards
in 2023. Her works are in the collections of museums including the San Francisco Museum ofModern Art, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, and theSão Paulo Museum of Modern Art.

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5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City

Yoshihiko Ueda
born in Hyogo in 1957,
lives and works in
Kanagawa

Yoshihiko Ueda is a photographer. He graduated from the Osaka Visual Arts Academy in 1979and studied under Masanobu Fukuda (1939–
2001) and Taiji Arita (1941–2011) from 1979 to
1981. He established his own practice in 1982,
and has been a professor at the Departmentof Graphic Design, Tama Art University, since2014. Ueda has contributed commercial workfor clients including Suntory Oolong Tea, Muji,
Shiseido, and Canon, and debuted as a film director in 2021 with The Garden of Camellia. He
is noted for Quinault (1989), a series that captured the sacred Native American rainforest of
Quinault, and the related Forest: Impressions
and Memories, 1989–2017 (2018), for which heshot the three prehistoric forests of Quinault,
Yakushima, and Kasuga Taisha. By spending alarge part of the past 30 years in interaction
with forests, not least by taking photographs inthem, Ueda has developed a unique perspective on capturing vegetation and light shining
through trees. This time he photographed two
types of woods in the northeast of Okayama
Prefecture: the Wakasugi Natural Forest and an
artificial forest. In the natural forest, trees growfreely and sunlight filters through the trees. In
the artificial forest, the trees are arranged inrows and light shines directly into open spaces left by thinning. The former resembles theprimeval forests that the artist has focused onin the past—“There were trees that appeared
to welcome me as I roamed the mountains,” in
Ueda's words—while the latter shows traces ofcoexistence between humans and nature.

Yoshihiko Ueda, Quinault, No. 1, 1991

https://www.yoshihikoueda.com/

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Kazuyo Sejima

5. Hiruzen area, Maniwa City
born in Ibaraki

Kazuyo Sejima, Inujima Project (Okayama, Japan) ,2010

Kazuyo Sejima received a degree in architecture from the Japan Women’s University in 1981
and opened her own studio in 1987. In 1995, she founded SANAA together with Ryue Nishizawa,and in 2010 she was appointed director of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of the
Venice Biennale. Sejima’s father was from the former town of Katsuyama in what is now the cityof Maniwa, and she has been familiar with the area from an early age. She now also serves as a
tourism ambassador for the city. Guided by the theme of harmonious continuity between architecture and the natural environment, Sejima has developed an international oeuvre of architectural designs that interpret and reflect their natural and social environment from a distinctive
perspective, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. She also designs furniture, saying that she wants to “create chairs that look like animals, like living creatures,and design spaces where they join with humans and enjoy the place.” The chairs she designed
for this year’s festival were made from wood provided by the local company Innosho Forestry andmanufactured by Sada Kenbi Co. The chairs have distinctive legs, resembling those of a walking
animal, and their seats, decorated with animal-like patterns, are designed to drain rainwater,
making the chairs both decorative and functional. They will be placed in front of houses along
the Katsuyama Kaido, a historic Edo-period (1603–1868) road where each house displays its own
noren curtain, inviting visitors into a new landscape. Sejima is the recipient of awards including the Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan*, the Venice Biennale Golden Lion Award*,
the Pritzker Prize, France’s Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters, and the Medal with Purple
Ribbon. (*as SANAA)
http://www.sanaa.co.jp/
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Chien-Chung Liao

6.Okutsu area, Kagamino Town

born in Taipei in 1972,
lives and works in Taipei

Chien-Chung Liao, Looking towards the Home, 2023
Photo: mt.project

Chien-Chung Liao is a graduate of the Taipei National University of Arts. He applies mainly carpentry techniques, which he obtaining by studying woodwork, to his artistic work. With exquisite
craftsmanship, he vividly simulates machines and vehicles often seen in the city, exploring theambiguous relationship between the simulations and the real objects. The audience experiences
the process of realizing that what appears to be real is in fact an elaborate imitation. With thisprocess, the artist hopes to stimulate people to rethink the environment they have taken for
granted and to evoke viewers’ personal stories and the social implications that underlie the subjects. The work he presents at this year’s festival is a large sculpture some 6.5 meters in height,
taking as its motif the crested kingfisher, a bird that symbolizes the lush nature of Kagamino. It
will remain at the site after the end of the festival in the form of a public artwork. An inhabitantof mountain streams, the crested kingfisher is the official bird of the town of Kagamino and has
been designated a Natural Monument of Okayama Prefecture. Its habitat extends across the town
(the former village of Tomi). In addition, the artist has planted kobushi (Magnolia kobus) trees
amidst his work, so that as the trees grow, the artwork will become progressively at one withnature. Liao’s piece blends in with its surroundings while giving a voice to nature; a voice thatshould be heard and remembered by the residents of Kagamino as well as visitors to the town.

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6.Okutsu area, Kagamino Town

Jukan Tateisiborn in Chicago in 1986,
lives and works in Tokyo
and London

Jukan Tateisi, Abiotope, 2019
© JukanTateisi

Jukan Tateisi holds a Master of Arts degree from the Royal College of Art in London. He produces works that take as their theme the dissolution and synthesis of dichotomic borders such as
virtual and real, and natural and artificial. His main works include Beach on Beach, which superimposes beach layers; To The Fog, in which he delivers a personal monologue directed to fog
through a public broadcasting system; and In(to)stallation, which brings the space for viewing
art into a forest. His activities extend across several domains, such as music, film, performing
arts, and food products. This time, Tateisi presents a sound installation inspired by a visit to the
Okutsukei Valley in the town of Kagamino, where he heard the sound of the flowing river, rustlingleaves, and animals and insects chirping amidst the magnificent nature. In the forest, famed for
its autumn foliage, stands an object traced from the rocks of the river. The viewer is reflected
in its mirrored part along with the scenery of the Okutsukei Valley. By listening to the sounds
coming from within the world reflected in the mirror, the viewer is reminded of the harmony of
nature, nurtured since time immemorial. And by looking objectively at their own reflection in the
mirror, they are reminded that they too are living alongside beautiful nature, their surroundings,
and other people.

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Parfait

Pâtissier
Naritoshi Suzuka
Okayama native Suzuka led the Japanese team that won firstprize at the 18th La Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie (World
Pastry Cup), held in Lyon, France in January 2023.

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Logo Design

FOREST FESTIVAL OF
THE ARTS OKAYAM A

森の芸術祭

森の芸術祭

岡山

岡山

FOREST FESTIVAL OF
THE ARTS OKAYAM A
FOREST FESTIVAL OF
THE ARTS OKAYAM A

FOREST FESTIVAL OF
THE ARTS OKAYAM A
森の芸術祭

森の芸術祭

岡山

岡山

Designer: Barnbrook Studio (UK)The visual identity of the festival is inspired by the duality oflight and shadow. The delicate fabrics of the local Hinoki studio
influenced a series of visual meshes that are used with fresh,
contemporary colours creating a feeling of lightness and transparency. These are combined with photography of Okayama’s
nature to represent the festival’s symbiotic relationship with thelandscape.

Concept
The visual identity of the festival is inspired by the duality oflight and shadow. The delicate fabrics of the local Hinoki studio
influenced a series of visual meshes that are used with fresh,
contemporary colours creating a feeling of lightness and transparency. These are combined with photography of Okayama’s
nature to represent the festival’s symbiotic relationship with thelandscape.

46Press Release | 2024.9.2

AccessArea

Niimi Sta.

Tsuyama Sta.

Okayama Airport
Tokyo

Okayama Sta.
Osaka

from Major Cities
to Okayama

Airplaneappx. 1h15min.

Okayama
AirportLimousine Bus
appx. 30min.

Tokyo
JR Shinkansen-Nozomi
appx. 3h10min.
JR Shinkansen-Nozomi

NagoyaJR Shinkansen-Nozomi

Osakaappx. 45min.
JR Shinkansen-Nozomi

Hiroshimaappx. 40min.
JR Shinkansen-Nozomi

FukuokaNaha

Okayamasta.

appx. 1h40min.

appx. 1h40min.
Airplaneappx. 2h.

Okayama
AirportLimousine Bus
appx. 30min.

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to Each Areas

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Press Release | 2024.9.2

Sales Period

Advance sales
June 7 (Fri.) – September 27 (Fri.)
Day-of sales
September 28 (Sat.) – November 24 (Sun.)*Please make sure to confirm admission fees for each facility inadvance.
*Admission is free for those with a physical disability certificate,medical rehabilitation handbook, mental disability certificate, or
documents proving that they have an intractable disease, andfor one caregiver. (The disability certificate application MIRAIRO
ID can also be presented to receive this exemption.)*Tickets are not necessary to view artwork installed in public
places.
*Visitors of high school age or younger, or who have disabilities,
etc., may still be required to pay for single-venue tickets forsome facilities with admission fees.
*Tickets cannot be refunded or reissued after purchase.

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Press Contact

For details on tours and other matters, please contact us at:
info@yna.tokyo​​
Pressrelease provided by the Office of the Executive Committee,
Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama: Clear-skies Country

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