About "NAAF"

Dates：: August 21st - October 10th, 2021 (51 days)

Venue：: Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture

Organizer：: Northern Alps Art Festival executive committee

Executive Chairman：: Ushikoshi Toru(mayor of Omachi)

Honorary Chairman：: Abe Shuichi(Governor of Nagano)

General Director：: Kitagawa Fram

Visual ｄirector：: Minagawa Akira

Artworks：: 42 works（tentative）

Artists：: 41 groups and individuals from 14 countries and regions（tentative）

Concept

Water, Trees, Earth, Sky

～The land as atmosphere, transparency, and mass～

An overwhelming stream of water surges forth from the mountains of the Northern Alps, shaking each and every sense in our bodies.

A rich forest is located on the western rim of the Fossa Magna that divides the Japanese archipelago into east and west. It is home to the “Salt Road” which connects the Shinshu region to the sea, and is a place where the geological features and vegetation of east and west meet.

Evaporated warm and cold currents are carried by seasonal winds and collide against the Northern Alps. The resulting water falls upon the ground, and together with the forest, nurtures rich soil.

The high, blue skies that the people of Shinano gaze up at throughout their lives. Beyond this cherished land, over the mountains, it connects to the vast world.

The Water, Trees, Earth, Sky of the Northern Alps
Overwhelming torrents of water come flowing from the mountains of the Northern Alps.
Omachi City in the Nagano Prefecture lies on the Fossa Magna, which runs through the center of the Japanese archipelago. Surrounded by a series of alluvial fans, it prides rich forests as well as a culture and lifestyle that has been fostered through affluent water sources, and is a region in which the atmosphere of the mountains and daily countryside life come together and overlap. In addition, it is a place that gave birth to prodigious civil engineering works such as the Kurobe Dam and Takase Dam. The Northern Alps Art Festival is an attempt to look out over the mountains from the passages connecting the alluvial fans, while gazing up towards the blue sky from the water and the villages. Vivid and refreshing art works, the water, trees, earth and high skies coalesce to create a cool and clear ambience that encompasses us.
The second installment of the festival features the works of 41 artists from 14 countries and regions from Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa, and welcomes Akira Minagawa as its visual director. We hope visitors will take the opportunity to embrace this endeavor that sheds light on the relationship between water and human activities that unfold within the Northern Alps.

Kitagawa Fram
(Northern Alps Art Festival General Director)

Key graphic

The key graphic of the Northern Art Alps Festival 2020 - 2021 consists of water, trees, earth, and sky, an overarching theme representing the abundance of nature of Omachi-city, Nagano Prefecture. Overlaid on the photograph of Nakatsunako Lake and its surrounding mountains, the drawing expresses the cycle of water circulating through rich nature that evaporates, returns to the atmosphere, turns into the rain that falls onto the earth, fertilises trees in the mountains, flows into the lake then evaporates and rises back into the sky.
This circulation of water resonates with how art enriches people’s minds, fills life with bliss, nurtures coexistence among the diversity of society and nature, that then eventually contributes to the creation of art. I do hope that the Northern Art Alps Festival will be able to show how art and environment nourishes one’s life and mind.

Minagawa Akira
(Northern Alps Art Festival Visual director)

Grants

Program to participate