A Festival to Welcome the New Year

The first phase of the event explored the role played by the winter solstice in the origins of so many festivals held in the last days of the year, including Christmas. Two trees knitted from white rope filled the exhibition space. The knitted rope roots came together to form trunks and branches reaching the ceiling. The work’s creator, Sanada Takehiko, has shown installations made from clothing and textiles in and outside of Japan.

Winter solstice festivals date much further back into European history than even the earliest Christmas celebrations. Sanada adopted Celtic symbolism for these winter solstice pieces. Celtic culture in particular revered the holly plant as sacred. Visitors to the exhibit were asked to write down their hopes or prayers on small sheets of paper, and to tie the papers to the branches of the rope trees. Sanada’s hope was that visitors would play a part in making the trees thrive over the course of the event—binding their wishes to the trees and binding themselves to the exhibit in the process.

Institute for Art Anthropology professor and scholar of Celtic culture Tsuruoka Mayumi explains: “The earth is lit by sunlight for a shorter time on the winter solstice than on any other day. It also signals the approach of spring, and with it, the emergence of new life. Ancient peoples were deeply conscious of this phenomenon and understood the winter solstice as the one day that ‘binds’ each old year with the new. Celts in particular held winter solstice festivities to celebrate the rebirth of life and nature. In the darkest days of winter, Celts celebrated by decorating evergreen holly trees, a symbol of life, holding feasts, and praying for bountiful harvests in the new year.”

Tsuruoka notes connections with her own culture. “Japan has a remarkably similar new year’s tradition of placing pine branches at the gates to a home, or decorating the home’s interior with the native Japanese plants nanten [Nandina domestica] or senryo [Sarcandra glabra], both evergreen and dotted with red berries. Even such far-flung countries and cultures are still likely to share a similar understanding of the bond between humans and nature.”

Tsuruoka touches on another form of binding brought to mind by the event. “Since March 11, many people in Japan have been reconsidering their priorities in life. My hope is that this event will help people feel more strongly the bond between humanity and nature that is so often forgotten in today’s world.”

The second phase of the exhibit ran from December 27 to January 10 to see off the old year and welcome the new—marking the circle formed by the cyclical passage of years. The third and final phase of the exhibit, running from January 12 to February 14, was a consideration of the connection between the winter solstice and the practice of welcoming the coming spring.

SHIGA TOSHIYUKI One of the biggest factors in our favor was the fact that we’d experienced so much in the period leading up to the disaster, and had built up know-how about what to do. In 2007, my third year as chief operating officer, the Chūetsu Offshore Earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture. A key supplier in the city of Kashiwazaki suffered serious damage, and we were unable to produce any vehicles for a time as a result.

Until then we had thought we were doing everything we needed to prepare for a quake—making our structures more quake-resistant and so on—but we weren’t ready for this kind of interruption to our flow of parts from suppliers. This experience taught us the importance of appropriate instructions from headquarters in a disaster situation, to support our suppliers and make sure our own sites can carry on functioning. In October 2007 we began running disaster response simulations as part of our training.

As the chief of Nissan’s Global Disaster Headquarters, I was in charge of these simulations, which were altered a bit each time we ran them to expose us to a variety of potential situations. Actually, the first simulation drill we did after moving to our new global headquarters in Yokohama took place on February 21—less than three weeks before the earthquake struck on March 11.

For this exercise, we set up an emergency headquarters on the eighth floor of our building, complete with a row of desks and telephones, and practiced the first-stage tasks to be carried out following a disaster: checking on employee safety and contacting our own plants, our affiliates, and our suppliers to see how they were faring. We also discussed what to do, as we learned the full picture of the damage, in terms of deciding when to restart production or addressing supplier and logistical issues as we moved toward getting back online. In the drill we covered all these tasks in the space of about two hours.

The real thing hit at 2:46 in the afternoon on March 11. I was on the twenty-first floor of our headquarters at the time, and I immediately gave the order for the Global Disaster Control Headquarters to go into action. Around a half-hour later, I’d made it down the stairs to the eighth floor, and everything was set up just as it had been three weeks earlier—the desks and phones in place, the emergency equipment all ready for use. To this day I remember clearly how this drove home the importance of being prepared for disaster.

In our February drill we worked on the assumption that we’d be opening our headquarters to people who were unable to return home following a quake. This preparation served us well, too. We figured we’d need to have food on hand not just for employees, but for these stranded commuters as well. On March 11 we cooked all the rice we had and made it into 1,800 onigiri rice balls. We also had a stock of more than 2,000 blankets, which kept a lot of people warm that night.

INTERVIEWER So the planning and preparation you’d done in advance enabled you to make the right decisions when the time came?

SHIGA That’s right. I think three things are essential: being fully prepared for disaster, carrying out drills, and going into action as quickly as possible after a disaster strikes. Our preparations were not limited to our Yokohama headquarters. Our plants closer to the epicenter, in Tochigi Prefecture and in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, also came through the day relatively well thanks to regular preparedness drills. These facilities suffered damage: conveyor machinery fell down from the ceiling and the cupola on top of the casting plant toppled over. But there wasn’t a single injury. This was entirely the result of preparedness.

Some time after the earthquake I spoke with people from the plants, and their comments boiled down to this: they had done the drills so many times that when the real thing came they had the muscle memory to do what was necessary without thinking. If a quake hits while you’re casting molten aluminum, for instance, you can’t just run away—if that liquefied metal spills onto the factory floor it could start a fire. So the workers’ first move was to close the lid, and only then did they head for safety themselves. I was amazed that these people had the presence of mind to do all this in the midst of that shaking.

Corporate Revival as a Formative Experience

INTERVIEWER In July 2011 Moody’s Japan upgraded your company’s rating, which I understand was in part a positive evaluation of your risk management. What lies at the heart of Nissan’s ability to handle disaster so skillfully?

SHIGA As I said, we were able to respond quickly thanks to our regular training and preparation. During the recovery process that followed, though, I think we drew heavily on the management methods introduced as part of the Nissan Revival Plan that Carlos Ghosn rolled out when he became COO in 1999.

Generally speaking, companies tend to split up the tasks of disaster response. If a factory is damaged the production division will deal with the situation; if a supplier is harmed the purchasing division handles things. At Nissan, though, we have what we call “cross-functional teams.” These bring together people from many divisions to tackle tasks. Each individual division has its own traditional ways of approaching an issue, which can lead to barriers between different groups within the company. Bringing them together in this cross-functional arrangement helps to create new ideas instead.

We’ve defined the business principles to be upheld by all employees in what we call the “Nissan Way.” The first mindset outlined in this document focuses on just this sort of cross-functional thinking: the importance of diversity and openness to different views.

To take one example, after the earthquake we received a report that a supplier’s facility had collapsed, leaving it unable to produce parts. People from our purchasing division got together with their counterparts from our manufacturing and maintenance groups, and they went right to work to get the supplier back on its feet. Once we realized that we could source replacement parts from a different firm, our engineering department began testing straightaway. When it became clear that delayed delivery of electrical parts was going to keep us from outfitting some vehicles with navigation systems, our sales division began contacting customers to let them know. There’s no roundabout discussion between different divisions, with one side saying “we don’t have parts” and the other saying “then have purchasing go and round some up.” An environment is in place where everyone can work as one team.

It was an especially pleasant surprise to me when our engineers, who normally work only day shifts, moved to an around-the-clock schedule to perform quality checks and testing on the replacement parts. I believe this may have been the first time in Nissan’s history for engineers to work night shifts. Their efforts let us know right away that these parts would work in our vehicles, and we got back to volume production in the shortest possible time.

All of this goes to show that the cross-functional culture that’s been nurtured at Nissan since it began its recovery in 1999 has truly proved its worth in this time of crisis.

I’d like also to note the positive effects of our “cross-regional” approach. The March disaster caused delays in the production of parts in Japan, in turn impacting Japanese companies’ production in plants overseas. In our case, though, we saw very little drop in our production outside Japan. Immediately after the quake, we brought factory managers from all over the world—the United States, Europe, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and so on—to the Nissan Motor Honmoku Wharf, our main distribution base in Japan. In all there must have been around a hundred people there. All these people from different parts of the world worked to coordinate the logistics. They looked at the production situation in their own countries and the progress in getting parts manufacturing back up to speed in Japan, and they figured out the most effective way to allocate the available parts worldwide. There was no scrambling to get shipments of rare parts for their own factories. This was cross-border teamwork aimed at keeping our global production from falling off. Diversity is one pillar of the Nissan Way, or course, but I was still moved to see how naturally our people achieved this level of cooperation.

Overcoming Crisis

INTERVIEWER It sounds as though you’ve successfully made crisis readiness an integral part of your corporate culture. Were there any difficulties along the way?

SHIGA I think one key factor is the way we came through our business crisis in the 1990s. Beginning in 1999, the year we entered our alliance with Renault, our performance started to improve steadily. Then in 2008 we were plunged into danger again due to the global financial crisis. This means that our employees know all about how important it is to make intensive efforts to get through times of crisis.

Our 1990s crisis saw us bleed red ink for eight straight years. This lengthy downturn accustomed us to a business that never improved. Even when we came up with a plan to turn things around, we wouldn’t implement it swiftly enough, necessitating further measures that were also too little, too late. Our situation went further downhill. If you’re constantly late in responding to problems you’ll never achieve a recovery. Through the Nissan Revival Plan, which we announced in 1999 to put our business back on a sound footing, we learned our lesson at last, and we came to understand the need for intensive effort—even if it involved some pain—in order to achieve a swift recovery.

We implemented intensive measures after March 11, too. For example, we put all new development on hold and cancelled all overtime throughout the company for three months. We put a stop to almost all expenditures, clamping down on cash flow in preparation for a possible worsening of the situation. I think our people were very receptive to the message that we needed to get these intensive measures in place right away. Now none of this was the sort of voluntary restraint you saw from a lot of businesses after March 11; it was all based on calculated decisions by Nissan’s management. I feel that our people showed a real understanding of our risk management approach and a willingness to go along with it.

It was around 2001, right in the middle of the Nissan Revival Plan, that we launched the risk management that has blossomed into what it is today. After that it was a process of trial and error. We identified risk factors that could impact the sustainability of our business, produced a risk map for the company, and tapped executives to serve as “risk owners” in charge of dealing with specific areas of risk. Once we had fairly reliable measures in place to handle a risk we removed it from our list and came up with new factors to address. This is the PDCA cycle—we plan a response to risk, do what’s needed, check whether our steps were effective, and act as required to improve the approach. And we put this PDCA cycle to use in preparing for earthquakes, as well as in putting together a business continuity plan for our supply chain.

A company with a functional risk management approach in times of crisis is also a company that can take on bold challenges in ordinary times. Nissan has become a firm that does not follow others, but crafts its own unique strategy and pursues it to produce results. This can be seen in our strategy for emerging markets and the energy we’re putting into electric vehicles, for instance. Following other companies’ lead doesn’t involve any major risk, since you can make your decisions based on what they have done wrong. But Nissan is taking the lead in various fields, and this involves all sorts of risk. The more daring our strategies are, the more vital it is for us to manage risk in a way that takes all these possibilities into consideration.

Let me give an example. If we looked only at the dangers immediately in front of us, we’d be reducing investment because of worries about the end of the Chinese economic bubble or the euro crisis, and we’d end up not achieving any growth. I feel that the Japanese economy is in this sort of mindset now. At Nissan, though, even in times like these we’re committed to strategies that put us in the front of the pack. Our latest midterm business plan, Nissan Power 88, is also a bold, ambitious package in this regard.

Risk management means more than just regular preparations for disasters or global economic problems. It also means producing bold visions and strategies and preparing to achieve them.

Automobiles at the Heart of Japanese Industry

INTERVIEWER It certainly sounds as though Nissan has been striving to stay prepared for every eventuality. The Japanese government, in comparison, seems to have been late with everything it’s done in response to the March 11 crisis. Even on measures to conserve electricity, industry appeared to be taking the lead, rather than the government.

SHIGA Automobile manufacturing is one of Japan’s leading business sectors. Indeed, we see ourselves as a pillar supporting Japanese industry as a whole. After March 11 we did what had to be done out of the understanding that if we didn’t pull our weight, the entire nation would be in trouble.

Let’s look at the numbers. Including parts, the exports of Japan’s automotive industry in 2010 amounted to 12 trillion yen. The industry was also responsible for imports worth 600 billion yen. This means that automobiles alone contributed more than 11 trillion yen to the nation’s trade surplus. Japan’s total trade figures came to 67 trillion yen in exports and 61 yen trillion in imports, producing a surplus of 6 trillion yen—so it’s clear that if the automotive industry becomes unable to export its products, Japan suffers a trade deficit.

Sure enough, in April 2011, after the quake had shut down so much of the industry’s production capacity, Japan racked up a trade deficit for the month. When the country slips from a surplus to a deficit like this, it eventually impacts the current account balance and the potential for issuing new bonds. The auto industry bears enormous responsibility in this regard.

Unfortunately, the industry’s production was halted by the March 11 disaster. This dealt a serious blow to the Japanese economy. The region affected by the quake and tsunami is home to some five hundred suppliers, which employ a huge number of people. These small factories can’t get back into operation if there’s no automobile production taking place. The same can be said of the chemical product manufacturers and the steelmakers in Kashima, Ibaraki: if we aren’t working, they can’t work. So we’ve got to get moving as quickly as possible to be a locomotive for Japan’s economy. After the disaster we were very aware of this fact.

The rolling blackouts implemented in response to electricity shortages brought manufacturing to a halt, putting quite a damper on our attempts to get back to work. Initially we planned to boost production gradually in July and get back to full steam from later in the summer through the fall. In this way we hoped to bring economic benefits to the disaster-stricken zones and contribute to the national recovery. But the blackouts threw a wrench into this plan.

The alternative to these planned blackouts, though, was unplanned, widespread power losses, which we knew were unacceptable. The automotive industry consumes a considerable amount of electricity. As an industry, we decided to halt our operations on Thursdays and Fridays, traditionally the peak of our power usage, so that consumption could be smoothed out over the course of the week and other industries could continue to function normally. The auto industry moved as one to shift its weekends forward by two days.

We took this decision because we thought it was the most effective way for us to contribute to society at the time. This wasn’t an easy thing to ask of our workers and their families, whose lives were disrupted by this change in their schedules, and we caused hardship to other people in communities where our facilities are located. So it was gratifying to hear from all these people that despite the hardships involved, in the end they were proud to have done their part for Japan. We asked a lot from our people at that time, but I’d say it was a wise choice, considering how it gave each and every one of them the chance to sense our industry’s responsibility to society.

The Strong Yen and Prospects for Further Crisis

INTERVIEWER This winter Japan will likely confront an uncertain energy situation again. On top of that, we’ve got to deal with an excessively strong yen and rising fuel prices. Japanese manufacturing could face yet another crisis when all these factors come together. How do you intend to overcome these difficulties?

SHIGA The toughest challenge we face is the strong yen. As a nation grows more powerful and its people lead richer lives, it’s only natural for their wages to rise, pulling up the strength of the country’s currency. As the currency grows stronger, labor-intensive industries that add relatively little value lose their competitiveness, and they drain away overseas. This in turn helps to enrich the countries that were a bit lower on the economic ladder. A nation that has grown wealthy, meanwhile, may boost its imports to excessive levels. When its trade balance goes into the red, its currency’s value also falls. This makes it competitive once again on the world stage, and it can grow its exports. This is my basic view of how the global macro economy tends to function.

As this cycle progresses, there’s an undeniable industrial shift toward making products with higher added value. There’s no need to go out of our way to protect the industries that fall behind in this process. While there are certain traditional industries that are worth keeping alive even if they aren’t particularly competitive, we don’t need to extend this protection to normal industries as well. Once an industry loses its competitiveness, market forces push it out of the picture. Then we see the birth of new industries to form the core of the economy. These are all well-understood principles.

Generally speaking, this sort of industrial shift takes place over time, with uncompetitive industries making way for new, vigorous ones. As this takes place, the new industries improve their productivity and technologies. What we’re seeing today, though, with the rapid appreciation of the yen, is a total upending of this process. With the currency so strong, no Japanese industry can remain competitive. Japan is home to 120 million people, and 54.8 million of them are in the workforce. Around a fifth of these—10.4 million people—are employed in the manufacturing sector. If manufacturing vanishes from Japan’s shores, where are these millions of people going to find new work?

There are those who argue that manufacturers should just head overseas if the yen gets too strong for them to remain in Japan, or that sectors like agriculture, medical and nursing care, and childcare will pick up the employment slack. But these sectors cannot make room for more than ten million new workers. Japan will need new key industries. These might be environment-related industries, and they might be in the IT field. But today, the key industry is automobiles. And we can’t be so irresponsible as to pull up stakes and go overseas without a new key industry to hand off the baton to.

If you were to tell me to go out there and turn my company into one that could survive even at an exchange rate of 50 yen to the dollar, there would probably be a way to achieve it. But while Nissan Motor would stay afloat, it would no longer be the Japanese company Nissan Motor. And that’s something that I think must be avoided at all costs.

One thing that really worries me is that there’s no broadly shared sense of how serious the situation is. If the yen remains at this level for five more years, Japan is going to see its industry hollowed out completely. When manufacturing is no longer viable here, what are we going to do to support a country of this size? I can’t shake this unease about our future.

INTERVIEWER Listening to your comments today, I get the sense that the auto industry is almost a reflection of the nation as a whole. In this connection, could we finish with your thoughts on what makes Japanese cars special?

SHIGA I think it boils down to the sense of hospitality that we extend as automakers to the people who ride in our cars. When you get into one of our vehicles, we want you to be enveloped in a sense of pleasure. This is the sort of experience we want to deliver with the cars that we craft.

We also provide what we like to call the pleasure of driving: the joy you feel when you get behind the wheel. Japanese cars have a lot to offer in other areas, too—their painstaking consideration for the environment, like you see in the eco-friendliness of our zero-emission vehicles or our products’ low carbon output across the board, and their high level of safety. In fact, Japan’s automakers deliver unique quality in every aspect of their products.

Hospitality. The pleasure of driving. The environment. Safety. Quality. I think these are the five factors that ensure Japanese autos will remain attractive to drivers around the world.

(Translated from a November 17, 2011, interview in Japanese. Interviewer Harano Jōji is representative director of the Japan Echo Foundation. Photos by Kawamoto Seiya.)

A speech delivered by Hashimoto on January 20 at a party hosted by the Osaka Restoration Association, the local political party he represents, reverberated throughout the political world on the eve of the regular Diet session.

In the speech Hashimoto stated that a mere 5% increase in the consumption tax could not revitalize Japan and stressed the need for reform by shifting from the existing prefecture system to a system of regional blocs. Hashimoto also clarified his intention to establish a “political preparatory school” with as many as 400 participants, over which he himself would preside as principal; and he indicated a strong desire to field numerous Osaka Restoration Association candidates for the next lower house election.

Hashimoto, whose proposed regional system has been dubbed the “One Osaka” plan, was elected mayor of Osaka last November, defeating the incumbent mayor who had opposed the plan. In seeking election as mayor, Hashimoto vacated his office as governor of Osaka Prefecture, and an Osaka Restoration Association candidate capitalized on the movement’s momentum to win the mayoral election.

The Impetus for a Political Realignment

Japan’s framework for local government is a two-tiered system comprising 47 prefectures, which constitute large self-governing entities, and locally governed cities, towns, and villages. Established in 1890, the system has remained basically unchanged for more than 120 years. Hashimoto’s plan calls for Osaka Prefecture to be converted into a newly established Osaka Metropolis, which would exercise broad, unified administrative powers. The prefecture’s two major cities, Osaka and Sakai, would be divided into a number of locally administered municipalities, or special wards. This is intended to eliminate administrative overlap inherent to the existing framework, in which the city of Osaka and Osaka Prefecture are separate entities.

For Hashimoto’s plan to be implemented, Japan’s Diet would have to enact new legislation. By indicating his readiness to field candidates in the forthcoming lower house election, Hashimoto is pressuring the national parties to fall in line. Although he has denied any intention to enter the national political arena, he is a popular figure nationwide. In a public opinion poll asking people to name those considered best qualified to be leaders, 20% of the respondents put Hashimoto at the top of the list. For this reason alone, there is strong possibility that existing political parties will undergo a realignment if the Osaka Restoration Association enters a large number of candidates in many of the 300 elections for single-seat constituencies. In a television appearance, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko sought to forestall Hashimoto’s influence, characterizing his words and actions as “a bit theatrical.” This is one of several indications of how apprehensive the Democratic Party of Japan is with regard to the Hashimoto phenomenon.

The continued concentration of political and economic power in Tokyo has sapped the vitality of Japan’s outlying areas. The existing framework has always been highly susceptible to conflicts of authority between prefectures and major cities. Even without completely buying into Hashimoto’s personal political outlook, it seems necessary to recognize that Japan is entering a period of change marked by the need to restructure its regional system.

Geisai, one of Japan’s largest art festivals, was created by one of the biggest names in Japan’s art world, Murakami Takashi. For Japan’s young artists, Geisai is a key way to make their debut in the art world. For visitors, the event offers not only a chance to get up close and personal with new works, but also a rare opportunity to interact directly with the creators behind the works.

The fifteenth Geisai was originally scheduled for March 2011, but was delayed due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The postponed event was re-imagined as Petit Geisai 15, an attempt to return to the festival’s roots in discovering and fostering world-class artists. To help realize this goal, two new restrictions on exhibiting artists were introduced for the event: artists had to be under 30 years of age and were subjected to a preliminary artistic review. The size of the venue is also much reduced from recent years, as reflected by the “petit” moniker. The intimacy of the venue helped to close the gap between artist and art lover and created a vibrant, creative atmosphere.

This 360º panorama captures some of the lively atmosphere of Geisai, where so many attendees caught a glimpse of the bright future of Japan’s art world.

For a more detailed report, please click the link below:

Petit Geisai 15: A Young Artist’s Battlefield

(Photographs by Somese Naoto with permission from GEISAI Executive Committee.)

Taking Geisai Back to Its Roots

Geisai’s predecessor, the Geijutsu Dōjō Grand Prix, was founded in 2001 by Murakami Takashi, a leader of the Japanese and global art world. The Geisai festival was started with two objectives in mind: to discover fledgling artists making their professional debut and to create a simplified market for regular consumers to purchase artworks. Murakami opened the first Geijutsu Dōjō alongside an exhibition of his own works.

In its first incarnation, Geijutsu Dōjō had no artist review requirement, meaning anyone at all could participate. The wide array of styles on display and the celebrity panel of judges brought lots of attention to the event. In total, over 200 artists took part in the forerunner to Geisai, and art lovers from all around Japan flocked to the highly successful event.

One year later, in 2002, the festival adopted the name Geisai, a contraction of geijutsusai, the “art festivals” that take place at Japanese art universities. In that year the festival moved to a larger venue and begin to attract an even greater number of artists as participants. Impressive showings at Geisai have proven crucial for young artists, many of whom quickly go on to make their art gallery debuts, or even win contracts for individual exhibitions. The festival has acted as a gateway to success for Geisai winners and participants alike.

Geisai continued to grow, and by 2009 the event was large enough to move to the Tokyo International Exhibition Center (Tokyo Big Sight) and to welcome over 10,000 visitors. The year 2009 also marked the debut of Geisai Taiwan in Taipei.

This successful arc was disrupted by the March 11, 2011, earthquake. Geisai 15 was originally scheduled for March 13, but the event was canceled and rescheduled half a year later. Murakami decided that the postponed event would also be an opportunity to return to Geisai’s roots, and to return emphasis to young artists making their debut. Two new restrictions were placed on participation: all exhibiting artists were required to be under 30, and in an effort to improve the quality of works displayed in the smaller venue, a preliminary artistic review was introduced. The scaled-down event became the “Petit” Geisai 15.

Bringing Art to Life

Petit Geisai 15 marked a fresh start, but the event was as lively as ever, with artistry and creativity in overwhelming abundance. The October event was similar in scale to the early Geisai events, with just over 200 artist exhibits including paintings, illustration, sculpture, and other installations in a broad mix of styles. Visitors crowded through the tight hallways between booths to see the artworks and interact with the artists, while on one end of the hall Murakami himself took up the microphone, mixing event formalities with artist commentaries on their own work, as well as his own brand of humor.

The preliminary artistic review ensured that higher quality pieces would be shown, and the smaller venue allowed for personal and direct communication between the artists and guests. Exhibiting artists and visitors alike enthused: “Recent years’ events have lacked a certain energy, but this Geisai had the same kind of power we saw in the early days.”

Murakami Takashi energetically emcees the Petit Geisai.

Another new twist at the “petit” festival was a visitor voting system for ranking artist exhibits. The highest ranked artists were awarded a personal exhibition of their works at the art gallery Hidari Zingaro. Murakami himself gave a running commentary as votes trickled in and artist rankings shifted, to the audience’s delight.

Geisai is also an outstanding venue for young artists to make themselves known to art world scouts. Geisai artists have sometimes been scouted by galleries within 30 minutes of the event’s opening. Even when the creators fail to make immediate connections at their debut showing, they learn valuable lessons from speaking directly with gallery and publisher representatives for the first time.

Petit Gesai 15’s panel of judges consisted of three Japanese art world luminaries, all of the same generation as the exhibiting artists: Matsui Erina, Kuwakubo Tōru, and ob. Despite their established status in the art world, the judges understand the great value of a place like Geisai, where budding artists can come in direct contact with galleries and scouts. Matsui and Kuwakubo understand that value better than anyone: Geisai was the launching point for each of their national and international careers.

“To invigorate the Japanese art scene,” argues Kuwakubo, “Japan needs a better-developed system through which commercial galleries can find and promote artists. Right now, Geisai is the best chance for an artist in Japan to get his or her start in this world.”

Matsui, meanwhile, notes: “There are plenty of art competitions in Japan, but this is the only ‘living competition’ with a real connection to the future. For the artists, that makes Geisai a ‘battlefield.’”

Judge selections. Above: Hiroko, selected by Matsui Erina. Bottom left: Fujikawa Saki, selected by ob. Bottom right: Yokoyama Nami, selected by Kuwakubo.

A Proving Ground for Creators

For emerging artists, Geisai can be the royal road to success in the art world. Many put everything on the line for Geisai, where overhearing things like “I’ve been preparing for two years” or “I quit my job to focus on my exhibition” is not at all uncommon. More than a few artists approach this “battlefield” with a heroic resolve and resignation to fate. With this singular goal in mind, they pare their entire world down to be expressed in the space of one Geisai exhibition booth, where their skill and worth as a creator will be tested.

“This was my first Geisai, but there’s a clear difference between this and other events,” observed the artist ob. “People here are much more serious and determined. Just coming in contact with these artists and their ‘must win’ spirit has inspired me to further my own work.”

Ezaki Tarō, the top-ranked artist as selected by visitors.

The event closed with the awards ceremony for the individual judges’ awards and the visitor vote ranking awards. The smiling faces ascending to the stage during the awards ceremony were certainly outnumbered by those who had taken their chance and found some meaningful success or encouragement. At the end of the event, the faces of the battle-weary artists showed nothing so clearly as relief.

Geisai 16 will take place on April 1, 2012. Young artists throughout Japan are already hard at work preparing for the event. The next battle—to leap from Japan to the world stage—is already starting.

(Originally written in Japanese by Majima Emari. Photographs by Somese Naoto.)

The Hokuriku region on the Sea of Japan and the Tōhoku region in the north of Honshū are among the snowiest areas on the planet. Winter in these regions can mean several days of nonstop snowfall at a time. At lower altitudes, it is common for snow to reach heights of a full meter or more. In the mountains, the figure might be two or three times higher. Known as yukiguni (Snow Country) in Japanese, these snowy regions account for close to half of Japan’s land area, and are home to some 20 million people.

Winter can be a daily struggle in the Snow Country. Daily life in such a climate presents many challenges. Constantly clearing snow from roads and roofs is just one of them. Every town and region has its own way of celebrating during the dark days of winter and putting a bit of brightness into spirits dampened by the long cold season. Some of the local festivals and markets date back several hundred years. This collection of photos by Saitō Ryōichi shows the local people enjoying these special moments of escape from the daily grind. The images are full of the vitality and warmth of the winter festival season.

Saitō explains, “It’s easy for people to become shut off from the world when snow is falling for days on end. These winter festivals offer a much-needed change of pace, and provide an important opportunity for people to let their hair down and recharge their batteries.”

“The grown-ups get almost as excited as the children when the festival day draws near. The festivals bring back happy memories of childhood, when snow was a friend and playmate. The festival gives people a lift and helps them to keep going till spring. The atmosphere during these festivals is something unique to Snow Country. I hope something of this special atmosphere comes through in my photographs.”

(Click on the lower half of the photos to play “Yuki”)

Violinist Takezawa Takeshi has been concertmaster of the French National Orchestra of Lorraine for nearly twenty years. Here he plays the classic children’s song “Yuki” (Snow) to match the feelings these photos evoke. Let Takezawa’s violin and Saitō’s photos whisk you away on a trip to the Snow Country at festival time.
Violin by Takezawa Takeshi

Pessimism can easily take hold in such a situation. Certainly, I would not deny that the world economy faces a number of perils. But this is precisely why it is worthwhile to step back from a “doom and gloom” outlook to look around for what else the future might have in store for Japan and the rest of the world.

The linchpins of the global economy are the United States and China, which are first and second in the world, respectively, in terms of gross domestic product. People are watching to see whether the struggling US economy can smoothly recover and the overheated Chinese economy can avoid a hard landing. Unfortunately, European economies are in such dire difficulties that the best we can hope for is that they do not sink into a deeper financial quagmire.

Rays of Light in the United States

We can begin by looking at the United States, where the latest economic indicators convey good and bad news. These statistics reflect a situation in which the US economy is poised to take the path of either growth or further stagnation. The business environment is bleak, with consumer spending in a slump, employment improving only slowly, and housing battered by a deep drop in prices. Still, there are some positive signs. Most of the damage resulting from the collapse of real estate prices, in the wake of the subprime mortgage fiasco and collapse of Lehman Brothers, has been limited to the household sector. Meanwhile, the corporate sector got through the crisis in relatively good health and now has a wealth of funds at its disposal.

Plummeting housing prices and soaring unemployment have harmed the household sector, but the slump in consumption has had the positive effect of encouraging a structural adjustment. The economic downturn in the United States was caused by the collapse of a bubble inflated by excessive spending. If families instead put a somewhat larger portion of their income into savings, rather than spending, the demand would shift in the direction of exports. This is precisely the sort of change that US President Barack Obama is seeking to bring about through his administration’s economic strategy.

The declining value of the dollar and the slowdown in consumer spending occurred within this context. The United States now simply needs to wait for its exports to begin expanding, fueled by the weak dollar. Such an adjustment is admittedly a painful process. If the negative effects of the drop in consumption became too pronounced, the US economy could slow down even further. A look at the recent economic indicators, however, suggests some favorable developments since the beginning of the year, including a better employment picture. Let us hope that these developments gain momentum.

The Might of the Chinese Mandarins

After the demise of Lehman Brothers touched off the global financial crisis, the Chinese economy quickly regained its footing, bolstered by bold economic policies implemented by Beijing. At the same time, this policy response heightened concerns about extreme overheating. Like other emerging countries that have been hit by currency and financial crises touched off by collapsing bubbles, China faced the danger of a hard landing. Judging from the developments over the last half year, however, I believe that the Chinese government has successfully cooled down the economy and piloted it to a soft landing.

The Chinese economy’s greatest strength is the government’s capability to manage the economy. The authorities in Beijing have a treasure house of fiscal funds at their disposal, and they have headed off financial crises in the past by injecting massive doses of capital into financial institutions. It is hard to say how long the Chinese mandarins will be able to effectively implement this interventionist economic policy, but I hope it will continue to work for a while.

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook for 2012

Source: “World Economic Outlook Update” issued by the International Monetary Fund on January 24, 2012.

Reconstruction Demand Will Prop Up Japan

In macroeconomic terms, the outlook for Japan is not that unfavorable. This is because of the demand that will be generated for rebuilding the northeastern area of Japan that was laid low by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. The Japanese economy, which has been plagued by insufficient demands after a decade-plus of deflation, will be getting a powerful boost from reconstruction projects. Talk of reconstruction demand usually calls to mind fiscal spending by the government, but we should not overlook the private-sector demand from reconstruction activities in the corporate and household sectors.

What we need to keep our eyes on among the movements in the domestic economy is not so much the short-term business outlook as the response of Japan to medium- and long-range structural tasks. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko is firmly resolved to restore the health of public finance through a number of measures, most notably a hike in the consumption tax. Fiscal soundness is of great import for the Japanese economy, but tax hikes are politically difficult to push through, which has meant that most administrations up to now have postponed the decision. It is encouraging that Noda’s government is proactively tackling this issue, without further delay, but given the administration’s lack of strong support there is a risk that political disorder could result from the tax-hike effort, further postponing the drive to get public finance onto solid footing.

The value of Japan’s government bonds is holding steady, due to the huge amount of savings flowing into the financial markets amidst the ongoing deflation, but their value could plummet if the political situation becomes turbulent and the market loses confidence in the government’s ability to get its budget back into balance fairly quickly. We will need to review the situation at key dates on the political calendar, including March, when the budget for fiscal 2012 (April 2012 to March 2013) will be adopted, June, when the National Diet’s regular session will close, and September, when an extraordinary session is to begin.

Local Stimulus Effects of Electricity Supply Reform

The major structural tasks Japan must tackle include dealing with the nuclear power disaster and reforming the electricity supply system. After the accident in Fukushima, many nuclear power stations were shut down, and they have not been restarted. As things stand, electricity supply is going to be extremely tight. We should note, however, that there have been some favorable moves with regard to long-term electricity supply. Japan has 10 electric power companies, and until recently they had close to a monopoly in their respective regions, each vertically integrating all operations from electricity generation to transmission, distribution, and retailing. This is a supply setup slanted toward distribution, with electric power charges set according to a total cost method. The result is that Japan’s electricity rates are among the world’s highest.

The nuclear power accident has sharpened the debate on reconfiguring the electricity supply system. An argument has been made that power transmission and distribution should be separated from power generation, and that deregulation should be actively pursued both in the upstream generation sector and in downstream retailing. It is likely that the debate on reform will further intensify in the months ahead. If Japan is able to follow the lead of the United States and Europe in introducing distributed networks and utilizing a market mechanism, the changes would probably stimulate the country’s regional economies in a variety of ways.

A Growth Strategy Promoting Innovation

Finally, let me touch on the accelerated pace of global operations among Japanese corporations amidst the strengthening yen. If corporations in such industries as automobiles and household appliances engage even more actively in offshore manufacturing, concerns about domestic employment will intensify. The shift to overseas production has had a particularly harsh impact on Japan’s regional economies, where many plants are located—including those operated by subcontractors.

Looking at the overall situation, however, we can appreciate that overseas operations bolster the competitive strength of Japanese corporation, and are thus necessary for energizing Japan’s economy. Consequently, instead of viewing the loss of manufacturing jobs negatively as a “hollowing out of Japan,” we should see it as an element of a major transition in the industrial structure. In the midst of this larger trend, we will need to look for ways to preserve jobs in regional communities and enhance the dynamism of the domestic economy.

Other key topics that Japan needs to address include designing systems to incorporate the economic growth in the Asian region, expanding employment in such fields as medical and nursing care in response to the graying of the population, and coming up with a growth strategy to promote innovation aimed at fostering successor industries to the automotive and consumer electronics industries. Those topics will have to be addressed elsewhere, however, because there is not enough space to treat them in detail here.

(Originally written in Japanese in January 2012. Photographs by Katō Takemi.)