Triennale Committee
Who are “Regional Leaders”? Aiming to create an Art Triennale run by local residents.
2025.06.21
Hello. I’m Kazue Nakata, the PR officer for the Chiba City Arts Triennale 2025 and a member of the “Regional Leaders.” Let me introduce you our “Regional Leaders” and what we mean by the term.
You might be wondering what they are supposed to be. Well, our “Regional Leaders” is a team of professionals involved in the management of Chibagei (Abbreviated name for Chiba City Arts Triennale) , mainly consisting of Chiba City residents.
Actually, this framework of, “people who live and work in the community being responsible for local Art Triennale,” is a major of the Chiba City Arts Triennale.
Chiba City Arts Triennale 2025 Management Team (General Director + 3331 + Regional Leaders) as of June 2025.
Chiba City has people with all kinds of talents!
But there haven’t been many opportunities for them to work together.
Chiba City, located in Chiba Prefecture, is a city with a population of 980,000 and is a government-designated city. It has developed as a so-called ‘suburban city.’
I myself moved here eight years ago and was surprised at how easy it is to access the metropolitan area and how comfortable the living environment is.
Another thing that surprised me was the diversity of people living there. For example, there are many people with the expertise needed for a large project such as organising an art festival.
Artists, creators, installers, community development coordinators, planners, spatial designers, graphic designers, workshop planners, project managers, editors, public relations specialists… and so on.
However, it is not necessarily the case that these people work together locally. Some are active in Tokyo or other parts of the country, while others work locally. So, even if they were casually aware of each other, there weren’t many opportunities for everyone to work together in Chiba. (This is just my personal opinion, though.)
‘Regional Leaders’ is a group of people who were working individually in Chiba City (and its suburbs) and came together to work on the Chiba International Art Festival 2025.
When the ‘regional leaders’ began to gather and were looking for venue locations, we visited various places in Chiba City together with Mr Nakamura (back), the general director.
The first press conference was held in October 2024. Members of the regional leaders took to the stage with the mayor and the general director. The number of members has continued to grow, and as of June 2025, there are 20 members.
An innovative art festival organized by an innovative team. Activities with a vision for the future.
As one of regional leaders, my activities involve meeting new people and discovering new places in our local communities…making every day full of new discoveries!
On the other hand, this is the first time we have worked together as a group, and almost all of us are part-time volunteers (working other jobs while participating in this project). Furthermore, most of us have no experience in organizing international art festivals, so we are learning everything as we go. If you ask us what it’s like, we would all say without hesitation that “it’s extremely challenging!”.
Nevertheless, as Chibagei is planned to continue as a triennial (an international art festival held once every three years), I believe that this process of trial and error and the deepening of relationships among local leaders will become an important asset in the long run.
I am looking forward to seeing how Chibagei will evolve over the next three, five, or ten years, and how the lives of the people living in Chiba City and the city itself will continue to change.
As an art festival beginning in the 2020s, we will strive to build new relationships with the community, form a strong team, and redefine the role of festivals. We look forward to your continued support!
The slightly curious image at the top is a scene from the Chinese restaurant Eikou in Chuo Ward, Chiba City. From left to right in the photo are Mei Nishiyama (General Producer, Creative Director, and Nishichiba Area Director) and Takashi Iwasawa (Liaison Director and Ichibacho/Inohana Area Director) from Regional Leaders. One of the great things about Regional Leaders is that they can introduce guests to fun local restaurants when they visit!!
Text by Kazue Nakata
