Complete Guide to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale - From Must-See Works to Model Courses

By embracing “inefficiency,” the opposite of rationality, artworks are dispersed so visitors open their five senses and revive a bodily memory of the wonder of life.

Entering land inherited from ancestors requires the community’s consent.
Artists study the region, formulate plans, communicate earnestly, and build trust with locals, and by planting the seeds of different ideas on others’ land, collaboration emerges beyond positions and facades.

Grounded in relationships between people and nature forged by life in heavy-snow areas, all activities are guided by the principle that human beings are part of nature.

Familiar satoyama scenery is framed and made to stand out by art.
Landscapes, tools, and settlements, ordinary to locals, are discovered and expressed by outside artists, and art becomes a mechanism that amplifies the power of place and the vistas behind works.

Works staged in vacant houses and closed schools pass on memories and wisdom embedded in place to the next generation, and these buildings continue to live as parts of the community.

Locals were at first perplexed and sometimes clashed with artists and urban youth who came as volunteers, but their passion gradually gave rise to collaborative action.

Public works-parks, toilets, lodgings, tunnels-have been turned into art projects, generating many works.

Facilities that condense Echigo-Tsumari’s culture and nature are designed by world-renowned architects and artists and now link settlements.

Everything humans create is “art,” and at its most basic it is “food,” so the festival focuses on food with locals in leading roles.

By involving international artists and cultural institutions, a depopulating satoyama evolves into a human-scale exchange hub linked to the world, opening possibilities for everything.

This contemporary art museum was renovated in 2021 and has a dozen or so permanent works.
You can enjoy works that deeply engage with Echigo-Tsumari’s climate and culture and pieces that let you feel changes in the exhibiting space and time.
Architect Hara Hiroshi designed a semi-outdoor concrete corridor and glass architecture, and in the central pool Leandro Erlich created a work integrated with the building, making the structure itself a highlight.
Inside are the MonET Museum Shop, which sells Triennale logo goods, artist items, and local specialties, and Salon MonET, where you can enjoy drinks and sweets in an artful space.

A closed elementary school was reborn by picture book artist Tashima Seizo as the “Hachi & Seizo Tashima Museum of Picture Book Art.”
The entire school becomes a single giant picture book, and as you move through the gym, school building, and grounds, the “spatial picture book” story unfolds.
On blackboards, corridors, and in classrooms, three-dimensional objects made from nuts, driftwood, and scrap materials line the spaces.
Characters like the last enrolled students and friendly “ghosts” bring the story to life, letting you experience a unique space where building and display are one.
The schoolyard extends the picture book world, a mother goat, Shizuka, and her kid live here, and a biotope made from fallow paddy fields lets you observe small creatures through the seasons.
The complex includes Hachi Café offering light meals and sweets using local ingredients and Bookshop Kusamura selling Tashima’s picture books and original goods.
A closed elementary school was reborn by picture book artist as the “Hachi & Seizo Tashima Museum of Picture Book Art.”

This roughly 100-year-old thatched farmhouse was renovated and embellished with ceramics by leading Japanese potters to animate a lived-in space.
Inside, even the kamado stove, irori hearth, washbasin, and bathtub are ceramic, and you can enjoy meals while viewing the works.
On the first floor, the eatery serves set meals made with local ingredients such as rice grown on rice terraces and seasonal mountain vegetables.
Dishes served in ceramic ware let you feel both the warmth of the community and the blessings of nature.
The second floor has three tea rooms where you can appreciate ceramic works in a calm setting.
The house also supports whole-building private stays, letting you linger through satoyama nights and mornings.

In addition to the facilities and works above, the Tokamachi area hosts many installations.
Here are two standouts.

Perched on a scenic site, House of Light is a stay-type art facility by James Turrell.
Designed so guests can inhabit Turrell’s world over time, it provides a tranquil space to focus on light.
In the second-floor Japanese-style room “Outside In” (12.5 tatami), opening the movable roof reveals a square of sky.
At sunset, a changing-intensity light program heightens the sky’s color shifts.
In the Light Bath, a bathroom with fiber-optic lighting, water’s surface shimmers and objects in the water appear to glow, creating a dreamlike experience.
You can tour the building without staying overnight, but the Light Bath is for staying guests only.

There’s more than just House of Light to enjoy here.
Many works evoke regional history or were co-created with local residents, and we recommend the two below in particular.

“Tunnel of Light” (Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel) is a signature facility of the Nakasato area where the entire pedestrian tunnel of Kiyotsu Gorge becomes an artwork you can experience.
In a 2018 renovation, Ma Yansong / MAD Architects reimagined the tunnel as a submarine sealed off from the outside and turned each viewing aperture into a periscope to capture external scenery, while transforming the interior into spaces that suggest the five natural elements-wood, earth, metal, fire, and water.
From each viewing point, you can see gorge rock faces and flows up close.
At the panoramic station at the end, a dreamlike vista spreads where the valley and sky reflect on the water’s surface.
Around the entrance you will find a cafe, foot bath, shop, toilets, and parking, making it easy to rest, eat, and shop between viewings.
Advance reservations are required in some periods, so check the official page before visiting for peace of mind.

Housed in a renovated former Kiyotsukyo Elementary School, the Isobe Yukihisa Memorial Echigo-Tsumari Kiyotsu Soko Museum of Art [SoKo] exhibits contemporary art in both the gym and the classroom wing under the concept “exhibit while storing.”
The classroom wing centers on a permanent display of works by Isobe Yukihisa and interprets the region’s topography and life through art.
In the raw gym with floorboards removed to reveal the concrete foundation, you can view large sculptures and installation works.
The museum also hosts an array of special exhibitions, including projects realized in Echigo-Tsumari.
Because opening days align mainly with special program periods and weekends/holidays, check the official page before visiting.

Alongside the facilities above, explore works dotted through Nakasato’s nature.
Among many, we particularly recommend the two below.

The Matsudai “NOHBUTAI” Field Museum is an “open-air museum” in which about 40 works are dispersed across roughly 2 kilometers from the MVRDV-designed hub facility Matsudai “NOHBUTAI” up to the mountaintop Matsudai Castle.
By touring both the indoor displays and outdoor works, you can immerse yourself in agricultural culture and landscapes of the snowy region, such as rice terraces and segai.
Programs themed around “food” and “agriculture” are another draw.
The restaurant Echigo-Matsudai Satoyama Shokudo is itself an artwork space by Jean-Luc Vilmouth (“Café Reflet”), where you can savor dishes made with local ingredients inside an art space.
Paddy fields on the grounds offer glimpses into local life and rice cultivation.
Numerous experiential programs connect you with the culture of nature through the seasons-wild-vegetable foraging in spring, satoyama walks in summer, rice harvesting in autumn, and snow play in winter.
Because the grounds are broad and works are many, touring by car is recommended.

The Matsudai History Museum repurposes and exhibits a roughly 140-year-old zelkova-frame farmhouse relocated here.
Massive beams and a roughly 10-meter main pillar withstand heavy snow, while an Edo-period irori, tatami room, and living room remain as they were.
In 2024, the work “Matsudai History Museum” by Obana Kenichi was installed inside, giving new perspectives to local objects and the facility and bringing out the site’s intrinsic stories.
Materials of Matsuo Shrine, a nationally designated Important Cultural Property, and video of rice terraces selected as one of the “100 Best Satoyama Landscapes in Japan” are also on view.
In addition to single-admission tickets, entry is included with a Matsudai “NOHBUTAI” Field Museum ticket.

NUNAGAWA Campus fully utilizes a former Nunagawa Elementary School closed in 2014.
Rather than only seeing, you can touch, listen, and smell-art that engages all five senses.
Works dot the grounds inside and out, including Mokuyu: Wood Bathing, a bath of wooden spheres, Passage of Flowers, a trolley ride around the ground, and Saiyah #2.10, where rotating glass lets you enjoy shifting colors.
Workshops are held frequently, and coloring pages featuring Hoppe, a cat that appears in museum works, are also popular.

Here are works co-created with Matsudai residents.
Viewing them will let you feel the Matsudai area more viscerally.

This small hands-on natural science museum focuses on biodiversity in snowy satoyama.
Permanent and special exhibitions explain the biodiversity of snowy satoyama scientifically and offer programs to enjoy while learning through experience.
A standard program, “Satoyama Creature Exploration,” takes you out to the satoyama with curatorial staff to collect and observe organisms while feeling seasonal changes in nature.
In the adjacent Bijinbayashi, you can enjoy spectacular seasonal views and a variety of wild birds, so be sure to visit together.

This stay-type artwork transforms a satoyama kominka into “an inn for dreaming.”
Born from the desire to have visitors reflect on themselves amid busy daily life, the work invites you to change into pajamas designed by the artist, sleep in a special bed, and write down the dream you saw the next morning.
Recorded dreams accumulate into a “Dream Book,” making both the guests and the experience itself the artwork.
Beyond guests, the house is open for tours on public days, where you can engage with the work’s core through displays, archives, beds and pajamas, and selected Dream Books.
Check the official page for public days and reservation methods.

Besides works that let you feel Matsunoyama’s nature, diverse pieces dot the area.
Among them, these are must-see.

“Akeyama Arts Center” is a “mountain school” that reuses a closed elementary school.
Artists, residents, and researchers learn together the skills and knowledge for living in Akiyamago and develop them into artworks.
The former second-floor gym is designed by architect Sato Kengo, and the display booths are themselves enjoyable as works.
Inside, folk tools, records, and installations line the spaces, letting you sense the techniques and knowledge of mountain life with all five senses.
Workshops run continuously, offering hands-on experiences of mountain life with local masters.

A closed junior high school from 2012 was reborn in 2015 as a performing-arts hub for theater, dance, music, and more.
It supports residency creation and training camps and functions as a theater for performances.
A variety of programs run throughout the year, including the limited-time Kamigo Clove Theatre Restaurant, in which local women perform while cooking, and schedules are listed on the official site.
While savoring Uonuma Koshihikari and Tsunan’s seasonal foods, you spend time immersed in story.
Inside the building are works such as Kamigo Bando Shiki no Uta, where automata sing, Passage of the Sun, where natural light and color weave spatial expression, and Farm Tools Are Musical Instruments, which resonates sound by treating farm implements as instruments.

In Tsunan you will find hubs and works that connect satoyama with the wider world.
Visit places where the seemingly opposite-local and global-coexist.

The starting point is Echigo-Yuzawa Station on the Joetsu Shinkansen.
Rent a car near the station, tour works in the Nakasato area and key facilities in Tokamachi, and stay at a ryokan in Matsunoyama Onsen, one of Japan’s three great medicinal hot springs.

When eating lunch near Tokamachi Station, consult local recommendations for station-area lunches and cafes in Tokamachi.

On the second day, travel widely through the Matsunoyama, Matsudai, and Nakasato areas and then head to the famed “Tunnel of Light” (Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel).
Return the car near Echigo-Yuzawa Station and head home.

In spring, flowers bloom across satoyama where snow still lingers, spreading vistas that herald the season’s arrival.
When conditions align, you can find spots where remaining snow pairs with cherry blossoms.
Landscapes of rice terraces brimming with snowmelt are also beautiful.
Another spring delight is local cuisine featuring mountain vegetables.

In summer, the sunflower fields in the Tsunan area are famous, with about half a million blossoms coloring the land in yellow.
Children can play in the pool at MonET’s central basin, and campsites along rivers offer full-on outdoor fun.

In autumn, mountains across Echigo-Tsumari glow with fall colors, with Akiyamago in the Tsunan area and Kiyotsu Gorge in the Nakasato area particularly beautiful.
Akiyamago has many foliage spots, each with its own distinct scenery.
At Kiyotsu Gorge, the interweaving of columnar joints and foliage is best enjoyed from “Tunnel of Light” (Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel).
Autumn is also new-rice season, and at Echigo-Matsudai Satoyama Shokudo’s New Rice Fair you can sample freshly cooked rice and enjoy its aroma and texture.

Winter’s charm is satoyama landscapes wrapped in deep snow.
Facilities hold snow-country activities such as snowshoe outings, sledding, and snow tubing.
“Yukimi gozen,” a special Triennale program, lets you feel the festival’s concepts through nutrient-rich dishes served with ceremonial sets and tableware once used in households to withstand the harsh season.
To enjoy Yukimi gozen, participation in an official Triennale tour is required.

Mobile reception is often weak in the mountains, and map apps may fail to load.
Carry a paper map sold at tourist information centers and major hubs or save maps to your phone in advance.
Also bring a mobile battery.

Because works dot paddy levees, mountain trails, and forested sites, you may walk on unpaved ground.
Wear slip-resistant sneakers or trekking shoes and carry a bag that leaves both hands free.
Add a hat, sunscreen, and a light rain jacket, and bring insect repellent for summer and a layer easy to adjust for spring and autumn.

Roads across Echigo-Tsumari get congested at foliage peak, and travel times can lengthen.
Plan with extra time.
“Tunnel of Light” (Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel) may require advance reservations in some seasons, so complete procedures before departure.

As a heavy-snow region, winter driving on snowy roads is unavoidable in Echigo-Tsumari.
National routes and other busy roads are plowed, but mountain roads freeze easily and curves and bridges are especially slick, so drive more cautiously than usual with reduced speeds.
If renting a car, confirm that it has snow tires before departure.