The Setouchi Triennale is a major international contemporary art festival held every three years across a dozen islands in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, including Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima near Takamatsu. Launched in 2010 to revitalize aging and shrinking island communities, the 100-day festival unfolds across Spring, Summer, and Fall sessions, presenting both temporary and permanent installations that encourage visitors to travel by boat between islands. Blending contemporary art, architecture, and local culture, its projects range from museum settings such as the Benesse House Museum to site-specific works embedded in villages, ports, and natural landscapes. Widely regarded as a model for regional revitalization through art, the Triennale seeks to reconnect visitors with local life, ecology, and history, transforming rural islands into immersive cultural destinations.
Its curator, Fram Kitagawa, has reimagined what a large-scale exhibition can be—not confined to a single institution, but as a network unfolding across islands, ports, abandoned schools, fishing villages, and agricultural landscapes. Spanning the Seto Inland Sea, the Triennale positions art as a catalyst for cultural restoration and exchange. Artists are invited to work in close dialogue with local histories of migration, industry, craftsmanship, and daily life, creating projects that often remain long after the festival closes. Central to the initiative is the concept of the “Restoration of the Sea”—a commitment to reconnecting islands and communities through art, travel, and shared encounter.
Fram Kitagawa shared with Whitewall details about the presentation’s ethos and how art can connect the sea and land, the past and future, and local interests and global dialogue.
Fram Kitagawa on Art Across Islands
Fram Kitagawa, courtesy of Setouchi Triennale.
WHITEWALL: The Setouchi Triennale is grounded in the environments of the islands it occupies—not just as exhibition sites, but as places with histories of migration, industry, and resilience. When curating, how do you think about place as a collaborator?
FRAM KITAGAWA: The festival aims to showcase the unique appeal of each island and community—its history, craftsmanship, food, culture, everyday life, and more—through art as a medium. By inviting artists from outside the region (as “others”) to engage with and make use of local resources, we hope to rediscover the area’s inherent strengths. Through this process, we want local residents to regain a sense of pride and confidence, and to create a festival that holds genuine value for the communities themselves. For this reason, we view each place not merely as a “supporter,” but as an active and essential of the festival.
“Through the sea and art as mediators, new connections have been created,”
–Fram Kitagawa.
WW: The Triennale is held on a dozen islands in Setonaikai, the Seto Island Sea, which separates two of Japan’s main islands―Honshu and Shikoku. How does this unique geographical place shape what is possible?
FK: Around 26 million years ago, land that had separated from the Eurasian continent gradually came together across the sea, forming what is now the Japanese archipelago. The Seto Inland Sea emerged as an inland sea during this process. Rich and tranquil, this beautiful body of water has long served as Japan’s “breadbasket,” sustaining life and culture throughout the region. One of the consistent core concepts of the Setouchi Triennale is the “restoration of the sea.”
In order to rediscover the sea’s boundless richness and the unhurried way of life on the islands, we have brought art into these communities. Through the sea and art as mediators, new connections have been created—between islands and islands, people and people, and between the islands and other regions. Visitors, traveling across the water by boat, have come to experience the joy of journeying through the sea. We believe these connections will continue to expand even further in the years to come.
The Work Between Festivals
Wang Wen-Chih, “Embrace • Shodoshima,” photo by Shintaro Miyawaki.
WW: Since its founding in 2010, Setouchi’s scale and global reach have grown significantly, even as the project remains embedded in local communities. How do you balance global conversations in contemporary art with the specificity of island culture and the community’s priorities?
FK: While it is truly gratifying that so many visitors from overseas come to the festival and contribute to revitalizing the region, as mentioned earlier, the festival must remain meaningful and valuable for the local communities themselves. For this reason, the culture of the islands and the daily lives of local residents are always our highest priority. Accordingly, we make every effort to ensure thorough multilingual guidance, clear notices, and visitor management both in advance and on-site. As many volunteers also come from abroad, we place strong emphasis not only on multilingual information through our website, app, and signage, but also on pre-festival training and on-site multilingual communication, including direct verbal guidance and support for visitors.
WW: Setouchi often foregrounds projects that are meant to withstand seasonal shifts and interactions. How does time, beyond the triennial calendar, factor into how you imagine this work and its impact?
FK: The Setouchi Triennale is not only defined by the 100 days of the festival held once every three years, but equally by the approximately 1,000 days of activity that take place in between. The local organization, the NPO Koebi Network, remains closely engaged with the communities throughout the year. It supports and helps organize local festivals, birthday gatherings, and various events on each island, while also taking responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the artworks. Through these year-round efforts, relationships of trust and collaboration with the region are continuously built. Only on this foundation can the creation of new works truly become possible.
The Future of Setouchi
Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett, “Conversations with Time” 2025. Commissioned by Art Front Tokyo for Art Setouchi Triennale, Sanuki-Tsuda, Japan. Photo by Shintaro Miyawaki. Courtesy of the Setouchi Triennial.
WW: The islands in Setonaikai have been suffering from massive depopulation, and its remaining residents are aging. What problems does this cause? How does Setouchi aim to spotlight these issues?
FK: Due to population decline, depopulation, and rapid aging, cultural succession and generational transition are becoming increasingly difficult. As a result, local festivals, food traditions, and long-established fishing techniques are gradually being lost. The festival responds to these challenges by creating artworks inspired by such distinctive local characteristics, and by communicating the region’s unique appeal both within Japan and internationally. In some cases, the festival has even encouraged an increase in U-turn and I-turn migration, leading to the reopening of an elementary school that had previously been closed—an outcome that drew significant public attention. In various communities, artists have helped revive local celebrations and Bon dances, while tours in which local women host visitors with regional cuisine—rich with accumulated everyday wisdom—have become established as lasting programs. At the same time, we place strong emphasis on preserving these cultural assets through archiving efforts, using interviews, videos, photographs, and publications to ensure they are recorded for the future.
“Art is something that enables people to empathize with one another,”
–Fram Kitagawa.
WW: Setouchi straddles multiple concepts and sites, from agricultural landscapes and fishing economies to poetic intervention and international contemporary practice. How has your curatorial philosophy been shaped by this tension between the everyday and the extraordinary?
FK: Within the emotions we experience in everyday life—joy, anger, sorrow, and delight—there emerge moments of hope, beauty, and quiet happiness. In resonance with these feelings, the scattered particles and waves of the universe seem to refract and stimulate our senses. Over time, I have come to feel that art is one way of engaging with such nature and its invisible forces. And in the same way, I have also come to believe that art is something that enables people to empathize with one another, and to form connections beyond themselves.
WW: The next iteration will be presented in 2028. What can we expect? Are there themes, concepts, or installations you’re already thinking about?
FK: In an age increasingly shaped by division and an overriding emphasis on efficiency, the potential that art holds is more important than ever. We will continue striving to create works that are engaging and meaningful for many people.
Kotake Man, “Uminoe Matsuri,” Date Unknown. Photo by Shintaro Miyawaki. Courtesy of the Setouchi Triennial. Photo by Shintaro Miyawaki. Courtesy of Setouchi Triennale.
