Cross-National Transfer and Community Participation in Regional Art Festivals: Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and Art at Fuliang



Author Information

Teng Huimin, Waseda University, Japan

Abstract

This paper examines how local resident involvement changes when a regional art festival model travels across national boundaries. It focuses on the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in Japan and Art at Fuliang in China. Echigo-Tsumari is treated as a reference case for art-led rural revitalization, while Art at Fuliang is examined as a receiving and translating case that publicly drew on Japanese regional art festival practices. Based on linked comparative fieldwork, including participation in Kohebi-tai in Echigo-Tsumari and long-term embedded fieldwork in Art at Fuliang, the paper traces how participation mechanisms are formed within different local conditions. The analysis shows that resident involvement did not travel as a ready-made component of the festival model. Instead, it was reorganized through different forms of mediation, coordination, and everyday practice in each case. These processes created possibilities for local involvement, but also revealed tensions over how participation was defined, valued, and sustained. The paper argues that cross-national transfer should therefore be examined not only through visible festival formats, but also through the less visible social arrangements that make local participation possible.


Paper Information

Conference: ACSS2026
Stream: Anthropology

This paper is part of the ACSS2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon