Sometimes, living in Tokyo can give us tunnel vision. It's easy to forget what lies just beyond the skyscrapers. Just 150km away, in Gunma Prefecture, lies the rural town of Nakanojo. Surrounded by mountains, it's a beautiful, atmospheric place, but over the last three decades it has suffered from depopulation. In at attempt to revive the area, the Nakanojo Biennale art festival was launched in 2007 and sees artists taking up residence and creating art in abandoned buildings, transforming them into natural art galleries.
This year's festival kicked off last month and runs until October 12 (now you have something to do on the long weekend), and has been beautifully documented in a short film by Guy Wigmore. He says: 'I’m a filmmaker from London currently based in Japan and over the past two months I’ve been shooting this documentary. I lived locally and was very much involved in the festival. I wanted to show the process and the labour involved.'
The film features interviews with artists Kyoko Fujiwara, Jaime Humphreys, Shinnosuke Tojo and Nobuya Yamaguchi, and festival director Tetsuo Yamashige, and can be viewed below as well as on Wigmore's website. For more information about the festival, click here.
'Corridor' by Minako Matsueda
Nobuya Yamaguchi preparing an installation
'Sprouts'
Nakanojo Biennale from washmedia on Vimeo.