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Reinterpreting Site-Specificity and Regional Art Festivals: The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale through the Lens of Doreen Massey’s Theory of Place

  • The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
  • Abbr : JASA
  • 2025, 75(), 7
  • Publisher : 한국미학예술학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Received : May 1, 2025
  • Accepted : May 18, 2025
  • Published : June 30, 2025

Joo-Un Har 1

1가천대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examined the aesthetic dimension of site-specificity in regional art festivals, with a focus on the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in Niigata, Japan. While previous research has often interpreted this art festival through the lens of relational aesthetics, highlighting participation, community, and local revitalization, this paper critiqued the limitations of such frameworks and instead adopted Doreen Massey’s theory of place as an alternative analytical lens. Massey conceptualized place not as a fixed and essential identity, but as a dynamic site of interrelation, temporality, and multiplicity. From this perspective, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was reinterpreted as more than a showcase of local identity. It was an event in which temporality and permanence coexist, visitors form distinct trajectories through spatial experience, and trans-local connections were forged with shared cultural narratives such as “Japan’s original landscape.” This paper argued that the festival demonstrates a complex, networked form of site-specificity, thereby challenging nostalgic or essentialist understandings of place. Ultimately, this study reconsidered the aesthetic potential of regional art and proposed a renewed framework for understanding site-specificity in contemporary cultural practice.

Citation status

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