Japan | Noto Peninsula Art Festival

Since the Art Triennale in Echigo-Tsumari in 2000, regional art festivals have successfully blossomed all over Japan. This year, they are even more colorful, with Art Triennale taking place in various parts of Japan and even in Taiwan. This year's Okunoto International Art Festival is one of the flowers blooming everywhere, and it is also the fourth art festival he has curated. Although there are art festivals worth seeing everywhere in Japan, I particularly like to appreciate the ones curated by Tomio Kitagawa, because I was moved by his original concept of curating Echigo. He hopes to use art to reconnect people with each other, people with nature, people with the land, and the concept of sustainable living in the mountains and seas. Compared to Echigo-Tsumari, Setouchi and Northern Alps, Oku-Noto has the best transportation arrangements. The organizers have arranged four different bus tour routes, departing from Suzu, to visit 37 works, divided into two shifts in the morning and afternoon, which means that all the works can be visited in just two days (except for performing arts projects). As a traveler, planning this trip was much easier than the past three, and it would only take two days. The coastline of Noto Peninsula is a holiday paradise. If you drive around, you can get to know the peninsula more deeply. Unfortunately, this time I mainly used public transportation. After participating in a two-day bus tour, I couldn’t find a homestay to rent, so I had to leave Suzu and return to Kanazawa in a hurry. I only participated in the art festival and visited Suzu and Noto Peninsula in a cursory manner. It was a pity. Among the 37 works, some are very impressive. The coastline of the Noto Peninsula is very beautiful. For someone like me who loves the coastline and the ocean, it feels wonderful to look for land art along the coastline. Under such a magnificent sea and sky, artist Takashi Fukasawa built a torii with garbage from the coast, telling how humans are destroying our own homes. This beach house is also a creative space! When I first stopped the car, I saw a small house by the sea and thought I could use it for my creations. I walked into the house and looked at the sea from the window. I was completely attracted by the beautiful Sea of ​​Japan. Then I saw a model of a small house made of shells in a small corner of the house. I began to admire it! Walking outside and taking a closer look, it turns out that Japanese artist Murao used thousands of shells and plaster powder to transform this cottage into a shell house overlooking the sea. It is all handmade, a very beautiful creative landscape! We came to Mitsuke Coast, a resort on the Noto Peninsula. Mitsuke Island is a small island about 500 meters from the coast. The Japanese piled up stone roads for tourists to walk to the island. This small stone road looks like it was built artificially, but in geography there is also a similar landform called a sandbar. Chinese artist Liu Jianhua used coastal garbage to imitate the topography of the island sandbar and created Drifting landscape. On the Awazu Beach on the east coast of the Noto Peninsula, there is a work by Japanese artist Masanori Koyama called "The Floating God at the End". In the Noto Peninsula, whales and old ships are considered auspicious objects, and the artist combined the two in his creation. The author used old ships and wood carvings to symbolize whales, and the entire creation symbolizes Japanese shrines and torii gates. The author placed a wooden sculpture of a mermaid inside the bow of the boat. The author extended the mermaid's hair all the way to the beach. When I turned around at the bow to take a look, I was really a little scared. #Japan #Overseas Travel #Art Festival #Noto Peninsula #Return to the Countryside #Suzu #Art Journey