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2026 Jogonin International Art Festival

Past years

Before Jogonin

Before coming to Jogonin, the organizer AT ARTS had been holding exhibitions and residencies in Hikone. Count from there, and the story goes back much further.

Theme

In Between

It began when Nonki Nishimura, an artist and head of the international art exchange NPO AT ARTS, approached Nobutaka Katsuyama, an artist and a member of the Jogonin temple family. The first debate was whether contemporary art belonged in a temple at all. Because of the pandemic, ten artists from overseas took part through video and photographs. Hand sanitizer was set out and social-distancing notices went up. Even so, a bold butoh performance electrified the venue.

Theme

Reunion

Thirteen artists took part, including four from South Korea and Poland. Overseas artists who could only join by video the year before came in person this time. Kenta Onishi, a nihonga painter awarded the Special Prize at the Nitten exhibition, is also a parishioner of this temple. The exhibition spread into places no one normally enters, such as the upper floor of the bell tower.

Theme

Place

In February, war broke out in Ukraine. Maria Luiza Filatova, a 23-year-old painter who had fled Zaporizhzhia, arrived in Japan in June and spent four months in the temple lodgings. Having people live at the temple was debated too, but the temple agreed, hoping to support someone who had been displaced, and the Jogonin Artist-in-Residence began that year. Six artists from Japan and abroad lived and worked at the temple. NHK came to report, and early the next year a report exhibition was held at the Shiga Museum of Art.

Theme

Set Free

This year the pandemic finally lifted. Travel resumed, and artists began visiting the grounds in spring to choose their spaces before making their work. Luiza took part for the second year running, showing paintings of Lake Biwa and the mountains of Shiga alongside the view from her window back home.

Theme

Era

The festival grew to three weeks, and café stalls appeared for the first time. Seven artists came from overseas, five of them working in residence. A finger-puppet workshop by Nico Baixas, a former Cirque du Soleil clown, delighted the crowd. Support days were held for visitors with visual or hearing impairments. Luiza took part for the third year running and said the temple had come to feel like a second home.

Theme

Freedom

The name changed from “Contemporary Art Exhibition” to “International Art Festival.” Exchange with artists abroad had grown, and with nihonga, crafts, music and performance now on show, the old name no longer fit. The festival ran for a full month. The main hall opened as an exhibition space for the first time, with works placed beside the principal image and behind the inner sanctuary. Midori Osaki, formerly of the Takarazuka Revue, exhibited in the main hall and also performed Japanese classical dance alongside avant-garde butoh. In summer, an international art festival began in Nagahama as well.

Records from 2025