What about challenging new expressions by immersing yourself in the pristine nature of Kumonohira, located deep within the Northern Alps, which is normally difficult to stay at for a long period?
While you need to be able to walk to the site yourself, we will support you in all aspects of your life.

Concept

The idea behind this project is that there should be more diversity in expressive activities surrounding mountains.

Looking around the world today, we can see a growing movement everywhere to re-examine our relationship with nature.
In a paradoxical situation where human prosperity itself is a crisis—due to environmental crises, resource depletion, the unchecked excesses of capitalism, inequality, and the chaos of the information age—the question of "what is nature?" is becoming an increasingly significant question mark. To confront this question, perhaps we can gain new insights by first re-examining the nature right at our feet.

Japan's natural environment boasts some of the richest natural environments in the world, possessing outstanding characteristics in terms of biodiversity and the beauty of its landscapes. Furthermore, before the Edo period, Japan was enriched with a unique culture that utilized its abundant natural resources, including wooden architecture, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and diverse crafts such as pottery and lacquerware. However, in the flow of modernization since the 20th century, old cultures were rapidly abandoned, and the focus on "industrial development" prevented the nature conservation movement as a modern ideology from taking root. As a result, there is now a significant disconnect between natural ecosystems and human society.

Even national parks like the Northern Alps, which are used by a massive number of climbers—nearly 10 million annually—are severely lacking in budget and personnel. A nature conservation system is virtually nonexistent, and academic and artistic fields that should be communicating the value and appeal of nature to society are in decline. Along with this, mountains are deteriorating in various regions.

This can also be attributed to the weakness of outdoor culture, which has not taken root in the realm of universal culture or a view of nature rooted in daily life, but has been treated merely as a genre of "hobby."

How can we overcome this situation?
While raising issues through discourse is necessary, we believe that what is needed at the same time is a richer imagination and a deepening of the cultural scope.

It's not a chain of conflict where economic development destroys the natural environment and livelihoods, while conservationists completely reject modern society. Rather, it's about gently connecting mountains and cities, history and modernity, life and industry in a gradual gradient, creating a highly harmonious environment as a social design.
It's not just about escaping the hustle and bustle of the city to the mountains, but about integrating the images cultivated in the mountains into urban creativity, and creating opportunities for more people to think about the value of nature on a daily basis, thereby bridging the divide between the natural environment and urban space.

Economic activity and the natural environment are not necessarily contradictory. Rather, a sustainable economy cannot be discussed without considering people's sense of happiness, their physical sensitivity, and the beauty of the world.

The development of artistic expression is essential precisely to prove these things without needing any explanation.

At night, if you stand on the plains of Kumonodaira and close your eyes, all you have beside you is the sky and the earth. There are no streetlights, the shadows of the mountains rise majestically all around, and from the valley floor, the faint sound of the Kurobe River, unchanged since ancient times, can be heard. At dawn, the chirping of birds announces the arrival of a new day in the twilight, and the valley breeze that rises with the sunrise gently awakens the flowers...
Kumonohira is an unparalleled environment for artists to incorporate the essence of nature as it is into their spirit.

The existence of nature contains the fundamental impulse for all art.
Infinite colors, the fertility of the earth, tectonic shifts that bring about overwhelming destruction, forests of death and rebirth. It is no exaggeration to say that its dynamism encompasses all artistic activities, from the magical religious art of ancient civilizations to contemporary art, from everyday tools to commercial design, from Buddhist chanting to classical music and punk rock.
Art has always been born where humans and nature meet.

How can mountain huts be made the most of their potential as bases for creating new relationships between people and nature? This question led to the creation of the "Kumonodaira Mountain Hut Artist-in-Residence Program."
We hope that these small steps will deepen our understanding of the world we live in and provide positive stimulation for the seemingly stagnant national park issue and the potential of outdoor culture.

We welcome expression in all fields, including painting, photography, graphic art, architecture, and literature.
Of course, expression doesn't have to be "bright and gentle"; dark and intense expressions are also welcome.

We would be delighted if you could draw out your own new expressions from the nature of Kumonodaira.

We sincerely look forward to receiving many applications.