What is an Art Festival?
August 6–October 1, 2017
The Sapporo International Art Festival 2017 (SIAF2017) will be held in the summer of 2017 in various locations throughout the city of Sapporo in Hokkaido, Japan.
The Creative City Sapporo International Art Festival Executive Committee welcomes musician Otomo Yoshihide as the guest director of the SIAF2017 and announced the outline of the festival including its theme, schedule, and ongoing projects starting in 2016. A guest director of the SIAF is invited by the local community to supervise the festival proceedings and the community work together to create a unique Sapporo International Art Festival.
The theme of the SIAF2017 by Otomo is What is an Art Festival? The “festival” Otomo has been imagining is creating with our own hands an intense place where our view of the world will be drastically changed after being there. What would then happen if elements such as “art,” “international,” and “Sapporo” are also involved? Something that Otomo has been thinking about since being designated as guest director, is “what is an ‘art festival’?” So we would like to think and look for answers to this question with the citizens and the people of Hokkaido at large, and also those all around the world who are interested in this art festival. We will strive to create a new kind of art festival that says “this is what Sapporo is!” where the various ideas of each participants are combined, clash, and react to one another. Don’t miss the Sapporo International Art Festival 2017 from August!
Guest Director: Otomo Yoshihide
Musician, born in Yokohama, Japan in 1959
He is known for composing music for a wide variety of genres from experimental to pop and jazz music. He has received attention from all around the world for his different activities, including his successful career as a sound track composer for film and TV. In recent years he has been producing works for exhibitions and special types of concerts in collaboration with various other artists under the name of “ENSEMBLES,” while also focusing on unique public-participative projects as well. In 2012, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, he started in Fukushima “PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!,” where he’d spent his teenage years and received the Ministry of Education’s Award for Fine Arts in the category of Promotion. Another of his many works, the theme music for the popular TV series Amachan, has received many honorable prizes, including the Best Composer Award for the Japan Record Award in 2013. In 2014, he launched “ENSEMBLES ASIA” with the Japan Foundation to create a stronger network through Asia woven by music.
Outline of the SIAF 2017
Main Venues: Susukino Area / Tanukikoji Area / Maruyama Area / Sapporo Art Park / Sapporo Shiryokan (Former Sapporo Court of Appeals) / Moerenuma Park and others
Ongoing projects starting in 2016: O-FUROSHIKI Project, Sapporo Collective Orchestra, Sapporo International Art Festival Design Project, Art Festival in the Downtown Project, Public Offering Project-Let’s Create an Art Festival Together-, SIAF2017 Artist-In-Residence Project
Organizer: Creative City Sapporo International Art Festival Executive Committee
