The huge earthquakes and the accident are kept in our mind with the name of “FUKUSHIMA”, and the north Ibaraki next to Fukushima prefecture. The art festival faces the memory and reality that people don’t want to tell even if they want to.

In the corridor: the Four Rainbows, work in situ, Daniel Buren for KENPOKU ART 2016. Japan, Daniel Buren, 2016 © DB-ADAGP Paris

There seems a mood to warm up people and the regions. The unusual life brought by beauty and simple surprise of daily life pieces of country hills and seaside appeared to deny the abnormal life. In the places, I met many local people who visited those places again and again as a huge pleasure to be born here. But, I felt that conversations of science caught our attention even though we didn’t really want to talk about that.

The Fallen Sky, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, 1995/2016

Lastly, here is the wonderful scenery. I visited the seashore where “The Fallen Sky” by Ilya & Emilia Kabakov was exhibited, which the building with the image of the sky on every wall was blown away by a typhoon. The piece, which looked like a piece of the sky stuck in the indistinct impression, took me to the spiritual world with the phenomenal story.

KENPOKU ART 2016
Theme: Sea, Mountains, Art!
General Director: Fumio Nanjo
Date: September 17th to November 20th, 2016
Place: 6 cities and villages of Ibaraki prefecture
Organize: KENPOKU ART Executive Committee
https://kenpoku-art.jp