I met Shanshan in the activity of "10 1 study room" in Shenzhen Reading Club. I worked late that day, but I always remember the theme of the day's activities in my heart; I arrived after a hasty meal, but I was still late. I haven't sat down yet, but I saw her sitting in the middle like the moon. There is energy inside, and it will naturally flash outside. Later, I told her that, in Annie's words, you are the kind of person who has the sea in her heart.

The theme of the day's activity was "Seeing Japanese Contemporary Art from Seto Inland Sea Art Festival". I like Japanese art and humanities since I was a child, and I can even say that I like the Japanese attitude towards life, so I waited for a long time and felt a faint little joy in my heart. As I expected, Shanshan opened a new world for us tonight.

The first time I heard about Seto Inland Sea was related to the world-famous Vietnamese Wife Art Festival. The artistic director of Seto International Art Festival and the curator of Moon Wife Art Festival are both Kitagawa Fururo. I remember watching an interview in Beichuan before. He said, "This is a world that has nothing to do with money. If this place with such a bad environment can become a utopia, even for a moment, I want to keep it like this. So we can see that the place he chose is either a secluded village with few people or an island with a very serious aging. From the works of art that fully combine the local temperament, we can see the love of the curator and every participating artist for this land. In order to facilitate your reading, this article will introduce the two major art festivals together.

Since 2000, the Great Land for Vietnamese Wives Art Festival has been held every three years, and the sixth one was held in July 2065438+2005. Seto International Art Festival is an international art festival of contemporary art held on the stage of Seto Inland Sea Islands. It is held every three years from 20 10.

Shan Ye, a 760-square-kilometer-wide area occupied by Japanese new wives (Niigata Shiro-machi and Jinnan-machi), is the largest outdoor international art festival in the world, which combines Japanese traditional farming culture and various forms of modern art works into a magical natural body. Since 2000, 148 groups of artists from 32 countries and regions have come to this land and expressed the intricate relationship between man and nature, time and history through more than 1000 works. The most special thing is that people living in the local area, whether they are old farmers or grannies in the canteen, are integrated into this 760-square-kilometer "art museum" without any sense of disobedience.

After Vietnam, the wife-owned area is located in Shin Prefecture in the north-central part of Japan. Even for Japanese natives from other provinces, it is a region with a weak sense of existence. Vietnamese wife is located at the southern end of the whole new county, surrounded by mountains, about two hours' tram ride from Tokyo. The sea breeze blowing from the Sea of Japan in the south and the barrier of mountains in the north make it one of the few snow-covered areas in the world since ancient times. The average annual snowfall can reach more than 10 meter, and almost half of the year is covered with snow and ice. However, because of the heavy snow, the cool snow water nurtured the delicious rice and vegetables in Shan Ye, and also brewed delicious Japanese wine and other boastful products. Another thing brought by Hao Xue is the continuation of the traditional farming lifestyle of at least 1500 years. In Vietnamese areas with wives, people still gather in the form of village communities and live a life of studying in Xia Geng in winter. On both sides of the Xinnong River, you can see the stepped hills formed after tens of thousands of years of river scouring, and many relics of human life in the rope age have been excavated here. Terraces, mountain streams, hot springs and other scenery between Shan Ye are Japanese farming characteristics that have continued to this day.

However, due to the development of urbanization in Japan in recent decades, like other rural areas in Japan, the population of areas with wives gradually migrated to cities through education and work after Vietnam, resulting in a large number of vacant houses and schools being gradually abandoned. These conditions lead to a serious problem of local aging, and the elderly over 65 account for 30% of the local population. Rich and beautiful land, but because of the departure of mature people, lost the vitality of the farming era. Faced with these situations, Furong Beichuan, a Japanese contemporary art curator born in Niigata Prefecture, is very worried.

Kitagawa Fukuro is the chief curator of Japan Earth Art Festival and Seto International Art Festival. 1946 was born in Takada City, Shin-Prefecture, and graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Tokyo University of the Arts. Since his college days, he has been very keen on the popularization of art. In the1990s, after Japan's economic bubble burst, all rural areas in Japan were faced with local weakness caused by brain drain and aging. "At this rate, the whole rural culture will disappear. Including the new, rural culture is actually the most important cultural part to support exchanges and communication across Japan. If rural culture disappears, then people will eventually disappear. How to protect Japan outside the metropolis Tokyo has become an important issue. " When 1996 came to Vietnam, he came up with the idea of changing reality with art, which is different from what people usually think. Art and business have always been closely related. General Fu Liang of Beichuan put forward the view that "human beings are a part of nature", hoping to make Yue's wife into a "demonstration area to show how human beings establish relations with nature" in an artistic way. It seemed naive at that time, but it became a wonderful force to promote the economic and cultural development of the whole region.

Since the first Vietnam Art Festival was officially held in 2000, every Vietnam Art Festival has attracted artists from all over the world to combine local natural and cultural landscapes to create. Up to now, artists Yayoi Kusama, Pino Ke Yan, christian boltanski, Ilya and Amelia Kabakov, as well as Cai Guoqiang, Qiu Zhijie, Rong Rong &; Artists such as Yingli, Liu Jianhua and Guan Huaibin have all created here. They really practiced the concept that "human beings are a part of nature", and transformed daily objects, equipment and places such as dams and snow shelters into works of art that inspired people to think about the relationship between man and nature. Beichuan's choice is very correct, because up to now, about 65.438+0.6 million tourists have come to Houjia's wife's house, making Xinquan County's economic benefits reach 4.6 billion yen. In addition, according to statistics, among Japanese art festivals, the return visit rate of Dida Art Festival is also among the best.

Setouchi Art Festival is also held every three years. The main exhibition venues are on the large and small islands in the Seto Inland Sea. There are 12 main islands, including Naoki Island, Toyota Island and Otaru Island, which are familiar to everyone, as well as Takamatsu and Uno Port, and exhibits are also displayed. Setouchi Art Festival is divided into three phases: spring, summer and autumn, and the works on display are slightly different.

That night, Shanshan brought "Seeing Japanese Contemporary Art from Seto Inland Sea Art Festival", which is exactly what she brought back to us with words and photos as a member of tens of thousands of tourists. Because there is too much content, in this article, we will enjoy some video recordings first, and then continue to expand the topic in the next article.

The first impression of Seto Inland Sea

Japan Arts Festival (2)