Utoro Art Festival 2025: How to “Migrate,” and Why Express “There”? [1]

The “Utoro Art Festival 2025” was held at three locations in Kyoto: the Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa(hereafter, Goethe IN), the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum, and Doshisha University (October 10th - November 10th). As the title suggests, the core of this festival is the area called “Utoro,” a residential district for Zainichi Koreans that transformed an “outrageous forced eviction” into a “takeover of resistance.”

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The Utoro district in Iseda-cho, Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, is a settlement formed by Korean laborers mobilized in 1941 during the Second World War II for the construction of a Japanese military airfield, who were unable to return to their home country after liberation and remained there. Despite having built their lives amidst discrimination, an eviction order was issued by a company that purchased the land from Nissan Shatai, which had succeeded the wartime national policy company and become the landowner. However, in resistance, Zainichi Koreans and citizens of Japan and Korea united to launch a legal battle, enabling them to purchase a portion of the land. Nevertheless, in 2021, an arson incident was committed by a Japanese youth, and pressure from right-wing forces continued. Despite this, the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum opened in 2022, and the significance of this place was recognized.

Based on History and People's Lives
 

The festival was organized by Art Director YOO Jae-hyun, a Korean residing in Germany, and Chief Curator CHUNG Hyun-ju, residing in Gwangju, Korea, among others. They conceptualized the Utoro district as “a symbolic space for exploring future coexistence, overcoming historical hardships through the unwavering will of Zainichi Koreans and the solidarity of Japanese and Korean citizens.” With the theme of “Movement, Life, Hope,” they attempted to express this. The aim was to re-examine the accelerating trend of “anti-immigration” and “exclusionism” (排外主義) through art, in addition to modern global historical contradictions such as the diaspora (離散民), transboundary movement, and division, by centering on the history and lives of the people of Utoro.
The opening of the series of events was a performance by two people, LIM Jee-Ae and CHO Hyemi, on a small outdoor stage surrounded by greenery at Goethe IN along the Kamo River. LIM was born in Korea, studied Korean dance and contemporary dance, and then moved (移住) to Germany. Meanwhile, CHO, a Zainichi Korean of the 4th generation(在日系譜 4世), was born and raised in Kyoto and studied both Joseon dance and Korean dance.

These two, while dancing the Basic Dance (基本舞) of “South and North,” confirmed their commonalities and differences through their bodies, and expressed this fully through their performance and an accompanying lecture. For example, when depicting a bird flying high, Korean dance directs the breath downward, toward the ground, and the movement lowers the center of gravity, sinking down and then thrusting upward. On the other hand, Joseon dance layers the breaths one by one, sending emotions far away, and dances as if reaching out to something. This can be described as an expression of the ideology that has become part of the art of the North, a kind of sublimated propaganda gesture.
Although the dances of the same ethnic group express similar yet different aspirations, they share many commonalities. Both start with breathing and move the shoulders and body as if thrusting up from the internal organs. It could be said that the un-tearable “ethnic body” of each people, even though the
nations are divided, materialized countless potential “encounters”. Amazingly, at that moment, a real bird flew high across the sky, passing over the audience from somewhere.
 

Layering Utoro on Okinawan Bingata Kimono

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At the exhibition at Goethe IN, Linda HABENSTEIN, originally from the former East Germany, expressed the situation in today’s unified Germany where the culture of the former East Germany is gradually being excluded, through her chocolate installation 《Liquid Memory (液状の記憶)》.

FUJII Hikaru (藤井光)’s work 《Reading the Cinders (灰を読む)》 stood out by critically alluding to a problem inherent in Germany as a response to the situation in Japan surrounding Utoro. The artist presented a photograph of the remnants of the German left-wing magazine Konkret burned to ashes, stating that he “wanted to think about Germany’s ‘culture of remembrance’ which regards expressions of solidarity for the Palestinian crisis in the current Palestine-Israel war as anti-Semitism, resulting in exclusion and censorship while overlooking the genocide.”
Furthermore, TERUYA Yuken (照屋勇賢)’s work, which layers Okinawa and Utoro with a traditional Okinawan “Bingata (紅型)” kimono, silently appeals against anti-colonialism and anti-warthrough 《Scarlet Birds, Crimson Sky (紅鳥、緋空)》. The article suggests that the labor of Zainichi Korean artisans may have been integral to beautifully dyeing the "Japanese kimono" that represents Kyoto culture. In contrast to the traditional patterns, stencils depicting fighter jets, fences, and a passage from "The Emperor's Words" are used on the Okinawan kimono by Teruya. The history of modern colonialism glimpsed in Utoro is encoded like a hieroglyph by Okinawa, revealing that it remains a contemporary Japanese issue.
At the entrance of Goethe IN, a flag installation 《Inbetween》 by OKIDO Mio (大木戸美緒) is fluttering. The geometrically patterned flag, which combines the national flags of Japan, Korea, and Joseon, tells a kitschy story of the conflict between affiliated groups and identity, and the entangled politics of East Asia. Okido’s flag work continues to the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum, where several flags flutter on the streets. The flags speak of “Utoro,” challenging and questioning visitors—this is also a work by Okido.
Covering  the  wall  of  the  memorial  museum  is  the  huge  Geol-Ge-Geu-Rim (hanging banner)《Bloom! Dandelion (咲け! タンポポ)》 by Hong Sung-dam (洪成潭) and the Gwangju group “Activist Art for Life & Peace (生命平和美術行動),” a group who once fought in the Gwangju People's Uprising.

As the day darkened, following the opening declaration by Vice Director KIM Su-hwan (金秀煥), who spoke of Utoro as “a space where I can live as myself”, and the greetings from Director KATSUMURA Makoto (勝村誠), the opening performance 《Untie, Only to Breathe Again (解きまた息をする)》 by HA Jhonnam, a Zainichi Korean currently active in Korea, began. Her costume, a white chima jeogorimade of hanji (Korean paper) and washi (Japanese paper) with countless strings hanging down, symbolizes the heavy burden shouldered by Zainichi Koreans. The performance concluded with the audience tearing the paper strings she was wearing, imbued with their wishes. What could that wish be?
Her work is also exhibited inside the Peace Memorial Museum. It is an installation called 《Paper-thin Space (紙一重の空間)》, which reveals the precarious continuity of the lives of Zainichi Koreans, where yesterday and today, Japan and Korea, coexist literally by a paper-thin difference.

The finale of the first day was the Madangguk (Open Air Theater) by the Osaka-based theatrical troupe “Taloreum,” performed with overwhelming energy, creating a festival space filled with the wit (諧謔) and wisdom of the Korean people that reverses negative history.

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The Figures of Yun Dong-ju and Niijima Jo in the Geol-Ge-Geu-Rim

At the third venue, Doshisha University, a guerrilla performance was also conducted by CHOI Jimok (崔智睦). The act of cutting up, dismantling, and reconfiguring a large blue sheet laid on the ground, and finally restoring it to its original form, suggests the 'water' that is reduced and circulates, revealing the formation process and history of Utoro. CHOI's work 《From a High Place to a Low Place (高いところから低いところへ)》, also exhibited in the Hanbaikan (寒梅館) on campus, visualized the lives of Zainichi Koreans who overcame hardships and survived in the poor, low-lying environment—a low-lying area where muddy water accumulates—where they arrived after crossing the sea and following the rivers.
 
Doshisha University is the alma mater of the poet Yun Dong-ju (尹東柱), who studied in Japan during the colonial era and died young in prison. 《When we were most beautiful》 by KI Seul-gi (キ・ス ルギ) was a staged hypothetical space of what might have happened if the poet Ibaragi Noriko had met Yun Dong-ju.

The same gigantic Geol-Ge-Geu-Rim 《Bloom! Dandelion》 is displayed near the Yun Dong-ju Poetry Monument within the university. This painting portrays Yun Dong-ju and a young girl looking up at the stars on the roof of a hamba(laborers' barracks) in Utoro. Furthermore, the man in the center holding a staff-like object in his left hand is the young figure of Doshisha University founder Niijima Jo, who resisted the war and stowed away to the United States.

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An Appeal of Resistance, the Geol-Ge-Geu-Rim

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In this way, the provocative works of 12 domestic and international teams sparked and connected at various points, culminating in a cultural performance titled 《Gyeol (結) - Connecting Hearts (つながる心)》. This grand performance, featuring the Kyoto Korean Junior and Senior High School Brass Band and the Utoro Nongak (Farmers' Music) Team, showcased the true essence of the festival. In addition, an open lecture by Professor KIDO Eiichi (木戸衛一) of Osaka University and an academic symposium were held, hosted by Professor ITAKAKI Ryuta (板垣竜太) of Doshisha University, inviting guests such as NAKAMURA Il-seong (中村一成) and MORI Chikako (森千香子).
Lastly, the article emphasizes that the Geol-Ge-Geu-Rim 《Bloom! Dandelion》 is an “appeal of resistance” displayed in the “field of struggle,” which, during the Korean democratization movement in the 1980s, was repeatedly torn down and destroyed, crying out for the overthrow of the military dictatorship. It is a testament to an era, a proof of resistance, displayed even as the artists themselves were suppressed.
If we forget this implication, art will become merely an object of appreciation, and the theme of “Movement” and “Migration” will camouflage (カモフラージュし) the “forced mobilization” and “forced labor” of Japan's colonization, becoming words convenient for us to hear, and covering up the contemporary issues that would have embroiled us in war. We must engrave and nurture within ourselves the “steps” of that movement that survived with sorrow and laughter, to decide with whom we will “live” and what we will express “there (the location).”
 

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Endnotes

 

[1] Furukawa Mika, “Utoro Art Festival 2025: Why Express ‘There’,” Shukan Kinyobi, November 14, 2025. Translated to English using Gemini, December 2, 2025.