Photography by Alejandro Villegas
Photography by Alejandro Villegas
Photography: Tomari Digaku
2025
ゆいの旗（とまり大学）
Itoshima Int’l Art Festival 2025 Itoshima Arts Farm / Flag of YUI
Itoshima International Art Festival 2025: Itoshima Art and Agriculture, Rakan River Estuary
flag
Organized by: Itoshima Inclusive Art Village Project (Kyushu University Graduate School of Human Environment Studies), Itoshima City Educational and Urban Development Division
Co-organized by: Arts Itoshima
In cooperation with: Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima Special Needs School
2025
ゆいの旗（とまり大学）
Itoshima Int’l Art Festival 2025 Itoshima Arts Farm / Flag of YUI
Itoshima International Art Festival 2025: Itoshima Art and Agriculture, Rakan River Estuary
flag
Organized by: Itoshima Inclusive Art Village Project (Kyushu University Graduate School of Human Environment Studies), Itoshima City Educational and Urban Development Division
Co-organized by: Arts Itoshima
In cooperation with: Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima Special Needs School
Photography by Alejandro Villegas
Photography: Tomari Digaku
An exhibition and performance by Tomari Digaku (Yoshitaka Nanjo x Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima Special Needs School) was held at the Itoshima International Art Festival 2025.
"Yui no Hata" (Flags of Connection) were created from drawings made by children at Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima Special Needs School. A portion of these flags was displayed on the riverbank stretching from the mouth of the river flowing through Itoshima City to the sea. During the festival, a performance was held in which participants walked with these flags. The children also played alongside the flags, and a new "landscape" was painted in this town.
Itoshima International Art Festival 2025 Itoshima Art and Agriculture
This work was implemented as a community-collaboration project within the Itoshima International Art Festival 2025 "Itoshima Art and Agriculture." In April 2024, to coincide with the opening of Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima Special Needs School, a collaborative wing-shaped artwork was created by combining feathers drawn by each student, under the theme of "Spreading the Wings of Each Individual's Small Dreams." This artwork was permanently installed at the entrance of the school building. Each feather individually represents expectations for school life and hopes for the future, and the collective artwork symbolizes the school's philosophy as a place where diverse individuals coexist.
In February 2025, this project photographed the feathers as individual works, and after editing by designers (Omoto and Takita), they were reconstructed into a flag. The completed flag was installed along the street connecting the special needs school and the local community center, creating an opportunity for the children's inner dreams to unfold into a public space. In this way, the artwork transcended individual expression and began to function as a visual and social device that enriches the local environment of the Tomari district.
Furthermore, in October 2025, the flag moved to Nijōmatsusue, following the interconnected relationships between people and between people and the land, developing into a movable artwork that traverses time and space. In this work, the flag is positioned as both a representation of children's dreams and a medium that visualizes the relationships themselves that are continuously generated and renewed within the region. The act of viewers holding the flag and walking together encourages encounters with others and participation in the land, suggesting the creation of a new "landscape" and sense of community in this region.