The Art of Island Time

The Art of Island Time

- David Billa

The Setouchi Triennale, an in-ternational art and architecture festival that takes place across 12 islands and two ports in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, features three seasonal sessions (Spring, Summer and Fall), once every three years, though some permanent installations can be experienced at any time. The summer session of the third edition of the festival commences on July 18th this year.

The project was launched in 2010 by Kitagawa Fram, inspired by his earlier initiative, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, which takes place in the mountainous rural villages of Niigata Prefecture. The recurrent theme of the festival is the “Restoration of the Sea,” with the goal of curbing depopulation and revitalising the Seto islands through art.

While the Triennale itself is the brainchild of Kitagawa, he is not the first to use these islands as a backdrop for art. The Fukutake Foundation, its benefactor the billionaire CEO of an educational publishing and cram school firm, has been doing this for a little more than 20 years. Starting with its Benesse Art Site project on Naoshima Island, it later came to develop world-class museums on Inujima, and more recently Teshima. Since its inception, Kitagawa and Fukutake Soichiro have been working collaboratively, along with the Prefecture of Kagawa, to manage and direct the festival.

Because of the multi-partite nature of the Triennale’s organisation, not every art site is managed the same way. The main division is between those managed by and belonging to the Fukutake Foundation, and those managed by the Triennale’s Executive Committee and belonging to various groups and people, mostly the Prefecture of Kagawa but also private individuals or local communities.