Rural areas in Japan are usually associated with depopulation, aging and stagnation. In order to tackle the widening gap between booming urban and distressed rural areas in Japan, novel revitalisation policies need to be examined. Contemporary art has untested potential as a vehicle for regional revitalization. To illustrate this potential, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial has been chosen as a case study since it constitutes a new type of revitalization with its emphasis on human exchange and interaction of heterogeneous players in a rural setting. Three Triennial projects will be introduced; in each of them, the extent of artists' involvement on site with residents, local perceptions of the artwork as well as nonlocal impressions will be analyzed. Discussing both emic and etic perspectives, the focus of this study is the 'soft' impact of the festival, i.e. how locals have perceived encounters during the Triennial, how cooperation between artists and locals took place, whether the project gave rise to a sense of autonomy and independence in tackling the issues of depopulation and obsolescence. Ultimately, the key question is what constitutes successful revitalisation. It is argued that revitalisation is only sustainable if incentives are created for residents to establish local autonomy. The results outlined in this paper are mainly based on ethnographic research.
This article aims to give an outline of recent developments in Ishinomaki, one of the worst affected cities struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. Before the disaster, the harbor town faced depopulation, aging residents, and a lack of prospects for the young, like many other stagnant regional cities. Since March 2011, Ishinomaki has seen an influx of short-, mid-, and long-term volunteers and young ambitious individuals who have moved from urban areas to initiate their own revitalization or social business projects. Drawing on and showing the limitations of Richard Florida's notion of the 'Creative Class', this paper approaches Ishinomaki's recent reinvention and transition from production to postindustrial multi-functionality as a phenomenon that can be seen as both a renaissance movement as well as the result of the structural instability of the labor market caused by Japan's transition into a mature postindustrial economy. 21 Stevens, On the margins, 14. 22 Stevens, On the margins, 14. 23 All pictures taken by the author. 24 Hendry, 'From Scrambled Messages to an Impromptu Dip', 55-70.
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