Liven up the city with art! Various art events are being held throughout Yao City this fall!

It would be wonderful if you could encounter art in “Machikado” even if it is not in a gallery or hall. Machikado Live Creation is an event for creation and exchange through art and culture held in various locations in Yao City.

It is held as a pilot project for the “Yao Machikado International Art Festival (tentative name),” which is scheduled to be held in 2028. They provide a venue where many people come and go, a place for presentations, and are currently holding weekly events in which artists and members of the general public and organizations can participate.

Project Inauguration

In this city, there are various places that serve as bases for appreciation, creation, and presentation activities, including the Yao Cultural Hall, and a variety of artistic and cultural activities are conducted at each of these places. However, individual artists and individual activity centers alone have limitations in terms of the scope of their activities and the dissemination of information, and have not yet led to a citywide movement.

Therefore, it was decided to form the “Yao Welcome Commons,” an organic network of arts and cultural activities in which people, places, and activities are connected through arts and culture, so that the forming entities can cooperate with each other and promote efforts to revitalize arts and culture in Yao. Machikado Live Creation is one of the efforts to form the Yao-Elkham Commons.

Project Activities

In addition, the Yao Welcome Commons logo mark was selected through a public contest and voted on by citizens, a joint high school cultural festival has been held since FY2022 with the participation of all six high schools in the city, Machikado Live Creation has been held since FY2023, and an art coordinator training course has been held since FY2024 to foster human resources in Yao City. From FY2024, they will hold an art coordinator training course to develop human resources capable of planning and managing interesting activities centered on art in Yao City.

Future Prospects for the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai

Yao Welcome Commons has been creating places where local people can come together with smiles on their faces, centering on art, in places such as town factories and temples, which at first glance may seem far removed from art. They would like to use our participation in the Expo as an opportunity to communicate to the world the efforts of the Yao Welcome Commons to date, to let people know about the revitalization of Yao City through art, and to attract visitors to Yao City so that people interested in our efforts will come to Yao City for the Expo Mini Fest to be held after the Expo.

We would like to create more opportunities for people who have never been interested in art to become familiar with and experience art. They would also like to create more in-depth and enjoyable projects through collaboration between art and other fields.