Floating constituencies

摘要

This year marks the second iteration of the Setouchi Triennale, the international art festival that aims to leverage the improbable amalgam of contemporary art and architecture with traditional villages and dreamy landscapes pioneered so successfully on the island of Naoshima. The inaugural festival, held in 2010, encompassed 7 islands including Naoshima, and exceeded all expectations, attracting 940,000 visitors over 100 days in the summer and early autumn. That's over five times the attendance of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. For 2013, the Triennale has expanded its scope to twelve islands, and its events have been clustered into three seasonal packages of Spring, Summer and Autumn, in an attempt to better spread the visitor burden. During spring, visitors exceeded a quarter-million; during the summer season, which runs from 20 July to 1 September, another half-million are expected; visitors to the festival as a whole will no doubt exceed a million overall.