Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

VisArt_07


has 1 film 1
Art, environment and thinking change - practitioner and academic approaches 
Convenor:
John Williams (Sophia University)
Send message to Convenor
Format:
Panel
Section:
Visual Arts
:
Auditorium 4 Jaap Kruithof
Sessions:
Sunday 20 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels

Short Abstract:

This panel offers a critical look at arts and regional revitalisation and between art and positive environmental practice in Japan. Two practitioners (a filmmaker and a visual artist) reflect on their own work with an academic (from Japan) involved in environmental conservation in a Tokyo park.

Long Abstract:

There has been an explosion of interest in Japan in the linkage between art in urban settings, art and regional revitalization and arts and the environment. Large-scale exhibitions in outdoor spaces, such as the Setouchi Triennale, Echigo Tsumari Festival and Galaxy Fest (Sado) have proliferated. In the theater arts, director and writer Hirata Oriza helped create a College of Arts and Tourism in Hyogo Prefecture, where he is launching an international theater festival. Regional filmmaking has been given a boost by government initiatives and subsidies. The new field of art and rural revitalization has also attracted academic study, including a two-day symposium in Tokyo at the DIJ (Art in the Countryside) in 2022.

Many regional initiatives focus on the economic impact of these events and see art as a way to attract tourists. The success or failure of projects is measured monetarily. Meanwhile policymakers often rely on artists as communicators of complex plans in information campaigns, while natural scientists and engineers hire graphic designers to package complex scientific data into easy-to-understand visual presentations. Planners also use art-focused projects as a policy tool to promote regional revitalization and tourism. Yet these utilitarian approaches can neglect, and at times hinder, art's potential to offer critical intervention into our understanding of humanity's relationship to nature and some Japanese artists and filmmakers' question the underlying assumptions behind these initiatives.

Art can promote greater community engagement and cultivate our capacity for creativity, innovation, and imagination. Such challenges from the world of art are essential in this era of climate crisis, which has required us to reorient our society and reimagine our place in nature. This panel offers a critical look at the relationship between arts and regional revitalization and between art practice and positive environmental practice in Japan. The panel is eclectic, with two practitioners (a filmmaker and a visual artist) reflecting on their own work and an academic (from Japan) involved in environmental conservation in a Tokyo park.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Sunday 20 August, 2023, -
Panel Video visible to paid-up delegates