An Aggregation of Different Pathways

I came into contact with this festival in the early 2000s, back when it was still known as Tokyo International Arts Festival, and was greatly inspired by then-director Sachio Ichimura’s idea that art should be another pathway different from politics and economics. I believe this idea has continued even as the festival’s directors and names have changed, and when I assumed the role of director in 2018, it was one of the things I was aware of first and foremost.

But we cannot continue inheriting this idea unless we also change the actual festival. “Different” is key here; since political circumstances and economic conditions are constantly shifting, we must always keep on considering the kind of pathway needed to connect things. Both in terms of determining that and in general, an arts festival inevitably cannot remain separate from politics or economics; rather, as a part of politics and economics, and strongly influenced by that overall situation, it must make a “different kind” of political judgment, and seek out a “different kind” of economic value (one not restricted to the monetary).

Art is not a standalone world. It is an undeniable part of reality, yet at the same time enables us to experience a different reality. Art is also not a tool for arrogantly holding authority aloft. It is something for, through an open pathway, showing each other what was not visible, for listening together to voices that were not audible, and above all else, for two sides joined by a pathway to breathe without suffocating. I believe an arts festival should function in the future as an aggregation of “different” pathways connecting places far and wide.