Having undergone a one-year postponement, the eighth edition of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale will take place over a period of 145 days from April 29 to November 13, 2022, with 263 artists from 38 countries and regions presenting a total of 333 works across a 760 k㎡ satoyama landscape. Among them, 95 artists from 13 countries and regions have produced new work for this occasion.

While the majority of artists participating from overseas had carried out their production remotely due to pandemic, each of their heartfelt efforts have given rise to remarkable results. The former Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art, KINARE, which serves as a key facility of the triennale, was renovated into The Museum on Echigo-Tsumari (MonET), with new works by artists such as Nicolas Darrot, Kohei Nawa, mé, Daido Moriyama, and Marnix de Nijs being permanently installed.

The triennale was initiated in 2000, in an attempt to revitalize areas that were being eroded by the shrinking and aging of their population, the collapse of local communities, and the decline of regional strength. Since then, for more than 20 years, as many artists from Japan and abroad have participated and collaborated with residents and supporters, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale has come to attract worldwide attention in its pioneering efforts for “community development through art.” “Human beings are a part of nature,” which has served as an overarching concept for the triennale, deepens its significance in the midst of the pandemic, and a trip that enables people to experience the local environment and culture while exploring the satoyama landscape with art as a guide, is something that seems to be increasingly sought after.

Today the world not only confronts a global environmental crisis including nature’s revolt that had been brought to light through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also finds itself in the midst of turmoil since its geographical discovery in terms of issues such as colonialism and social disparity. Furthermore, the triennale takes place while the Russian invasion of Ukraine raises the question of whether or not expression can extend beyond national boundaries. The creation of the work The Monument of Tolerance in Echigo-Tsumari at the end of last year on the occasion of the triennale by artists Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, born in the former Soviet Union (current Ukraine) and now based in the United States, appears to be highly symbolic in the context of our present circumstances. In 2000, for the first edition of the triennale, Kabakov created the work The Rice Fields, which combined poetry, landscape, and sculpture to describe the traditional process of rice farming while conveying the lives and hardships of the local people of Tsumari. In 2015 Kabakov produced The Arch of Life, and for this latest edition of the triennale, created the series the Kabakov’s Dreams which consist of four new works. The artist Zhanna Kadyrova, set us her works from Ukraine via Italy.

  In addition, a series of memorial exhibitions titled “Artists Still Alive in Echigo-Tsumari” will be presented in commemoration of artists such as Christian Boltanski, Jimmie Durham, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, and Hossein Valamanesh, who previously took art in the triennale and have passed away in recent years. Boltanski, who passed away in July last year, has taken part in almost every edition of the triennale since its inauguration. Presented on this occasion in the setting of a forest, is a new work that the artist had conceived for this triennale. It is anticipated for the triennale to serve as a platform that will enable us to listen to the voices of these various individuals who live in our very day and age.

  We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those both in Japan and overseas who have provided their generous support and cooperation thus far, and hope that the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale will be held safely without any issues by building upon the various difficulties and experiences that we have overcome in past.