Concept


KYOTO STEAM―International Arts × Science Festival features future-oriented and innovative projects at the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Starting from and embodying the principles of the Kyoto Cultivates Project to cultivate, nurture, and refine cultural initiatives in the city, KYOTO STEAM―International Arts × Science Festival a version of a society envisions and a version of a society where we can be hopeful about the future of the world.

Artists, scientists, researchers, artisans, technicians, and everyone from children to adults participate in a variety of ongoing projects in collaboration with corporations, universities, and research institutes, with those processes and results presented in the form of exhibitions, performances, talks, and workshops.

Kyoto CultivatesKyoto Cultivates, Nurtures, and Refines

The progress of humankind since the Industrial Revolution has stagnated due to global warming and catastrophic disasters that threat our survival, while religious conflicts and terrorism have made us more divided.

In addition, people have come to understand that the naive expectation that civilization will continue to progress and bring us happiness is, as a result of the development of information technology, accompanied by serious risks, making us increasingly doubtful about the future.

Against this backdrop, Kyoto, the city where an ancient culture has continued to pass down through the generations without interruption despite many natural disasters as well as wars over the centuries, must now cultivate, nurture, and refine our present-day activities and their sources toward a new future based on the East Asian attitude of coexistence between nature and humanity and on Japanese religious tolerance.

Through this project, we envision and disseminate a vision for society where people can embrace hope for the future of the world from Kyoto and Japan.


Festival Logo

The logo for the festival is a noren, a kind of short Japanese curtain hanging at the front of stores and restaurants. A noren serves as a gateway to another world as well as interface connecting different worlds. In Japanese, it also symbolizes identity. This logo expresses how KYOTO STEAM—International Arts × Science Festival serves as the entrance to one world while also existing in between different worlds.

KYOTO STEAM

Festival Logotype

Standing for “science,” “technology,” “engineering,” “arts,” and “mathematics,” STEAM is a newly coined acronym indispensable for future innovation in education and industries. The A is depicted larger than the rest of the letters because the arts harness and develop STEM and the variable existence of the arts flexibly connects all other fields. Moreover, two overlapping As indicates that there are new possibilities for arts even in the virtual world.

KYOTO STEAM—International Arts × Science Festival

Past Key Visuals

This visual design image evokes a sense of anticipation for a new festival marking a new era. Based on the image of a vibrant and lively festival, the integration of art, science, and technology is expressed through the glittering light and vivid colors. In conjunction with the logo, the use of shimmering colors visualizes a sense of spring and vitality.

KYOTO STEAM – International Arts × Science Festival prologue
KYOTO STEAM – International Arts × Science Festival 2020

A series of events in 2020 were held as a prologue preparing for the second festival in 2021. The dark blue background represents a sense of the profound and the unknown worldview of art, science, and technology, while also expressing the prologue as a time before dawn. Following on from the radiant and beautiful colors of the key visual of the previous year, it indicates the connection with the past festival.

KYOTO STEAM – International Arts × Science Festival 2022 prologue

Outline

Title KYOTO STEAM—International Arts × Science Festival
Event Periods December 2021–February 2022
Venue Kyoto City (Okazaki area)
Organizer KYOTO STEAM—International Arts × Science Festival Executive Committee
Chair of the Council Kadokawa Daisaku (Mayor of Kyoto City)
Councilors Aoki Jun (Director, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art)
Akamatsu Tamame (Chief Director & President, Kyoto City University of Arts)
Horiba Atsushi (Chairman of the Board, Kyoto City Music Art Cultural Promoting Foundation)
Producer Hiratake Kozo (Professor, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Kyoto Sangyo University)