“Yukiguni” or “Snow Country,” the celebrated novel by classic author and Nobel Prize recipient Yasunari Kawabata, was written in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, where the romantic setting of the story also took place. Blanketed in snow for almost four months a year, but pleasantly warmed by relaxing hot springs, delicious cuisine, and the breathtaking scenery, Yuzawa is also home to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (ETAT), held every three years since 2000.

The international art festival is one of the largest in the world, showcasing approximately 300 artworks by both Japanese and foreign artists. Works spread across the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field, comprised of the towns of Kawanishi, Nakasato, Matsudai, Matsunoyama, Tsunan, and Tokamachi in Niigata. The festival is particularly unique for its fascinating outdoor installations bathed in the bracing air of the rustic countryside. Workshops, performances, lectures, and art tours enhance the rewarding experience of “satoyama” life, which embraces the socio-ecological landscapes plotted in the mountainous areas. Visitors are, therefore, pulled closer to the maze of forests, farmlands, and preserved villages enveloped by art.

ETAT is founded on seven guidelines: human beings as part of nature; the journey to explore the satoyama landscape guided by artworks; collaboration among a diverse range of age groups, regions, and backgrounds; regeneration of value in restoring structures, such as abandoned houses and schools; enhancement of unique facilities and artifacts, such as tunnels, caves, parks, and earthenware; art of living, including food nourishment; and active exchange among international and local artists.

Ma Yansong / MAD Architects, Tunnel of Light, Photo: Osamu Nakamura

The Echigo-Tsumari Art Field 2025 runs until November 9th this year. For the summer tour operating until August 31st, among the unmissable highlights is the “Tunnel of Light” in the Nakasato area by Chinese architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects. Perhaps, proclaimed as ETAT’s most popular natural exhibit, the Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel has become a submarine museum that opens to exhilarating circular-silhouetted panoramas of the towering cliffs hovering above the historical Kiyotsu River. Envisioned in 2018, the art project abides by the five elements of nature: wood, earth, metal, fire, and water. In front of the tunnel’s entrance, a wooden gable roofed café  houses a round aperture in the ceiling of the second floor. Called the “Periscope,” it peeks through the Kiyotsu Gorge landscape, flashing reflections on the hot spring foot spa below. 

Ma Yansong / MAD Architects, Flow, Tunnel of Light, Photo: Alma Reyes

Visitors enter the 750-meter passageway, illuminated by green, yellow, red, orange and blue lights and enigmatic music called “Expression of Color.” Suddenly, a lookout, “Flow,” explodes with black and white striped walls that seem to rotate around the central toilet, “Invisible Bubble.” Inside, the metallic filmed walls permit a one-way vision of the gorge. Further ahead, the third platform,“Drops,” wraps visitors with droplet-like mirrors that look like water molecules on the ceiling and walls. The fiery light around them exudes warmth and a space capsule-like atmosphere at the same time. The Panorama Station or “Light Cave” brings visitors to a shallow pool of water that ripples with the wind and casts images of the mountainscape on the polished steel surface of the tunnel. You can walk on the water-covered path and feel the ravine’s cool river effect. 

Akiko Utsumi, For Lots of Lost Windows, Photo: T. Kuratani

A poignant installation in Tokamachi, “For Lots of Lost Windows” by Akiko Utsumi is perched on an open hill in an area heavily affected by the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake. Reminiscing the many horrendously damaged glass windows of the houses at that time, Utsumi built a non-glass window framework with blowing white curtains as a memento of mourning. While standing on the top of the small staircase, one calmly seizes the entire rural scenery as though from one’s own window.