Tokyo Odaiba Triennale 2025 announces theme and artists

The Tokyo Odaiba Triennale will be held from October 18 to December 25 next year in the capital’s iconic waterfront area. The theme of the International Arts Festival is “Disturbed Peaceful Sleep” a river —Wildness, Chaos, and New Worlds” from However (comic poem) from the 1850s.

Led by the Executive Organizing Committee and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the festival hopes to bring together art lovers and creative visionaries from around the world for a particularly exciting year in Tokyo: the city will also host the World Athletics Championships and the 2025 Deaflympics.

Thematic connections to Odaiba history

The decision to hold the festival in Odaiba was not just a recognition of the area’s spaciousness and abundant greenery. Odaiba attracted the Triennale’s artistic director because of its rich and symbolic history dating back to the Edo period.

Jodkison disturbs peaceful sleep

In 1853, after 250 years of isolation, Japan prepared for a Western invasion and used Odaiba as its strategic defense point – “Odaiba” translates to a cannon-firing battery. However, when Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan with four black ships on behalf of the U.S. government, Japan opened its door to foreign trade without firing a single shot.

famous However The triennial’s theme describes this pivotal event in a witty way: “The peaceful sleep was disturbed by Jokisen; just four cups kept me up all night.” Jokisen means ship and was a popular tea brand at the time. name. The poem’s humor demonstrates the resilience of the Japanese people amid sudden upheaval.

new world

Today, Odaiba is an artificial island with systematically designed buildings. The art directors were struck by the juxtaposition of a booming modern cityscape that represents Japan’s technological innovation with the rugged ruins of the past. The Triennale hopes to harness the latent energy of the site and the evocative power of art to inspire conversation and shape a better future.

Yayoi Kusama “Narcissus Garden” (1966-2018)

Participating artists announced for the first time

According to reports, about 40 artists will exhibit their works during the event. The committee works to select artists who represent different regions, generations and artistic philosophies.

©Courtesy of Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama is one of Japan’s most renowned visionaries and a pioneering artist who works across disciplines, including sculpture, installation, painting, performance and fashion.

Kusama experienced visual and auditory hallucinations as a child and began creating mesh and dot pattern art, which became an important part of her work. Her philosophy of self-destruction through obsessive repetition and multiplication of a single subject transcends borders and temporalities, resonating with a global audience.

In 2016, she was awarded the Japanese Cultural Medal. Kusama’s major retrospectives, iconic pumpkin sculptures, and enchanting Infinity Mirrored Rooms continue to be treasured around the world.

Lovers (2024), Yuriko Hayao

Yuriko Sasaoka

Yuriko Sasaoka was born in Osaka and now lives in Kansai and Hong Kong. She is an innovative artist who explores the intersection of painting and video. She creates incredible things with her touch, which is not unlike the brushstrokes in traditional painting.

Through careful composition and narrative, Sasaoka’s works prompt viewer recognition and alienation at the same time.

After participating in an artist-in-residence program in the Republic of North Macedonia in 2017, Sasaoka developed an abiding interest in the daily lives, history, and culture of citizens of Central and Eastern Europe.

A Walk in the Clouds (2019), Abraham Poncheval

Abraham Ponchval

Abraham Poincheval, who lives in the French city of Marseille, specializes in habitable sculpture. An insatiable explorer, he creates works that demand total immersion. For example, he pushed a capsule that served as a shelter through the Alps and sealed himself in the rocks for a week.

His work explores time and stillness through personal experience, and evokes the viewer’s attention and reflection by embellishment of natural landscapes.

One piece of work worth emphasizing is bottleDuring the 2024 Paris Olympics, Ponceval inhabited the giant bottle on the Canal Saint-Denis for 10 days. It has been exhibited at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2024), Bangkok Art Biennale (2024), Lyon Biennale (2019) and Palais de Tokyo (2017).

Dukuliu(2024), Lu Yang

Lu Yang

Lu Yang is a multimedia artist deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophy, living in Tokyo and Shanghai. His work explores interdisciplinary themes of identity, life, technology, and spirituality, often utilizing computer graphics (CG) technology and game engines.

He collaborates with experts in science, psychology, design and music. A highlight of his portfolio is Alone will alone (“We Are Born Alone, Die Alone”) series, uses Yang’s digital characters to address contemporary human issues and spread Buddhist wisdom.

Mr. Yang has held solo exhibitions at Fondation Louis Vuitton (2024), Mudec Museum in Milan (2023) and Kunsthalle Basel (2023). He also participated in the Venice Biennale in 2015 and 2022.

By Andrew Testa, The New York Times

explosion theory

Founded in 1991 in Brighton, UK, Blast Theory is a collective that explores social and political issues through performance, games, films, apps and installations. The team, led by Matt Adams and Nick Tandavanitj, uses pop culture and new technologies to create interactive experiences.

Blast Theory has been exhibited at the ICC Tokyo (2005), Hebbel am Ufer Berlin (2006), Barbican Center (2007), Venice Biennale (2009), Tate Britain (2010) and Tsui The Beqa Film Festival (2015) presented their work.

The band has been nominated for four BAFTA Awards and won the Nam June Paik Arts Center Award and the Electronic Arts Golden Nica Award.

From left to right: Junya Yamada, Akiko Miki, Akira Tatehata

Artistic Director of Odaiba Triennale

Akira Tatehata

Akira Tachihata has held many important positions in the art world and served as the artistic director of several international art exhibitions, such as the 2001 Yokohama Triennale, the 2010 Aichi Triennale, and the “Cultural Capital of East Asia 2017 Kyoto: Asia Corridor” exhibition. He is the director of the Yayoi Kusama Museum and the Saitama Museum of Modern Art, and the former president and professor emeritus of Kyoto City University of the Arts and Tama Art University.

In addition, Tatehata served as the commissioner of the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and 1993. He was made an honorary member of the Order of Australia, and received the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ 50th Anniversary Commemorative Award, and the Kyoto City Cultural Figure Merit Award. He has also received various awards for his poetry.

Miki Akiko

Akiko Miki is the International Artistic Director of Benesse Art Site Naoshima and a founding member of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. She served as the institution’s senior and chief curator from 2000 to 2014. She has also directed and curated many international contemporary art exhibitions, including the 1998 Taipei Biennale, the 2011 Yokohama Triennale (Artistic Director) and the 2017 (Co-Director) and 2024 Bangkok Art Biennales.

Miki has also served as guest curator for major exhibitions at major museums around the world by top Japanese artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto and Takashi Murakami. She is the co-author and co-editor of several books, including isolated insight (Lars Müller, 2011), winner of the DAM Architecture Book Award. Miki also teaches at Hirosaki University.

Sumiya Shanfeng

After serving as curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the 21st Century Museum of Art, Kanazawa, and the Mito Art Tower Contemporary Art Center, Junya Minegami founded and directed ANB Tokyo in Ropponmachi, a gallery- and work-based An art complex featuring indoor space.

Subsequently, he founded NYAW Inc. to provide planning and consulting services for cultural and art-related projects. This year, he began assessing the impact of social common capital. He is a consultant to the National Art Research Center and a visiting professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Odaiba Park

Exhibition location of the Odaiba Triennale

So far, four main locations have been designated as installation and exhibition venues: Odaiba Park, Fuji TV Headquarters, Fuji TV Taiwan Shore Studio, and Miraikan: National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.

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