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You can still enjoy the Kitakyushu Art Festival online via 3D virtual tours

This art festival, themed on sustainability, has gone online – you can experience it from anywhere in the world for free

Emma Steen
Written by
Emma Steen
Former writer, Time Out Tokyo
SDG Art
Photo: Keio SFC Hiroya Tanaka Lab.+ Metacity (Ryuta AOKI) 'Bio Sculpture' 2021
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Art for SDGs: Kitakyushu Art Festival is established to inspire more people to get involved with sustainable development goals. The 2020-2021 edition of the festival initially took place in Kyushu over eleven days from April 29 to May 9, but few people were able to see the installations due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and social distancing protocols. 

SDG Art
Photo: Akihito Okunaka 'Inter-World/Sphere: The Three Bodies' 2021

To give people a chance to see the artworks, the organisers have decided to make the festival accessible online via 3D virtual tours. There are six venues in total that can be experienced through 360-degree virtual walkthroughs 

SDG Art
Photo: Installation view of 'Road to Diversity’ exhibition at Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art

Featured venues aren’t just limited to conventional art galleries like the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, but also public spaces like the Higashida Odori Park or the plaza in front of the Space World theme park.

Kitakyushu Art Festival
Photo: Yoichi OchiaiYoichi Ochiai 'The umwelt of life and death, between mass and massless nature' 2021

Most of the venues feature more than one installation by the participating artists, which include Ryuta Aoki, Yoichi Ochiai, Mari Katayama, and Jeong Hwa Choi.

An additional artwork by Risa Ishii can also be viewed online, though this installation is presented through a YouTube video. Titled ‘Light X’, Ishii’s work consists of a digital light show projected across the historical Higashida Daiichi Blast Furnace, one of the area's designated cultural properties.

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