On July 29, the 7th Japan Art Triennale - Echigo-Tsumari Triennale opened. MAD, led by Ma Yansong, participated in the Art Triennale for the first time and renovated a sightseeing tunnel with a history of more than 20 years. The work is called "Tunnel of Light".

Echigo-Tsumari is a rare area with heavy snow in Japan, covering 760 square kilometers of land including Tokamachi City and Tsunan Town in the southern part of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The natural scenery here is beautiful in all seasons, and people have continued the traditional agricultural farming methods. It is a classic Japanese tradition and natural scenery. However, with the transformation of social production methods, more and more rural people have left the land, and young people have moved to cities through work or education opportunities. Therefore, it is also facing common problems often encountered in Japan and even the world: sparse population and serious aging phenomenon (the total population of Echigo-Tsumari is about 65,000, of which about 37% are over 65 years old, while the average level in Japan is 27.7%).

Mr. Tomio Kitagawa, an international curator known as the "Father of the Art Triennale", began to conduct in-depth research on the Echigo-Tsumari area in 1996 and initiated the "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale" in 2000 (Mr. Kitagawa also initiated the Setouchi International Art Festival in 2010). Mr. Kitagawa called the Art Triennale "regionally specific art." Here, art is not a goal, but just a way to express the relationship between nature, civilization and human beings. With the theme of "Humans belong to nature", hundreds of artists from all over the world will go into the community at each art festival, using mountain villages and forests as the stage, and work together with the elderly in the countryside and young volunteers from all over the world to transform and create nearly hundreds of works of art scattered in villages, fields, empty houses, abandoned schools, etc. Since the founding of the art festival, each art festival has left behind some excellent and easy-to-preserve works, which have become an integral part of the local environment. The last 2015 Art Trilogy attracted more than 500,000 people to visit Echigo-Tsumari, successfully activating the community with art.

The sightseeing tunnel renovated by MAD is about 750 meters long. It was built in 1996 for visiting the Kiyotsu Gorge, one of the three major canyons in Japan. Inspired by the "Five Elements" of ancient Chinese philosophical system, MAD added a pure "stroke" to each space in the tunnel, bringing a unique charm to each space, and each section makes people feel different atmospheres and tensions. The charm is combined into one, and it becomes a soul. The reactivated tunnel is like a fascinating situation drama, pulling apart time and space, taking people out of reality and into the land of imagination.

"Heavenly River" - Wood (Souvenir Shop & Hot Spring Foot Bath)
Near the entrance of the tunnel, a new wooden house that conforms to the local style has been built. The towering sloping roof can prevent snow accumulation in winter. The first floor of the building is a souvenir shop and a cafe, which displays and sells handicrafts of local villagers and can also be used for a short rest. The hot spring foot bath on the second floor is a dark space. The mirror in the roof hole cleverly reflects the canyon and water outside the building into the air, becoming a river in the sky.

“Color” – Earth (tunnel)
The 750-meter-long tunnel was illuminated by incandescent lamps before the renovation, which was plain and ordinary. MAD added dim lights of different colors to each section of the tunnel, accompanied by rich and mysterious light music. The atmosphere of the tunnel instantly became mysterious and subtle, and people’s curiosity and imagination about the unknown were infinitely magnified.

"Peeping" - Gold (Second Observation Deck)
"Bubble" has arrived in the deep mountains of Japan. The "bubble" in the center of the second observation deck is actually a bathroom. The one-way perspective mirror allows only the inside to see through the outside. The user in the "bubble" is like realizing the childhood wish of countless people to be "invisible people", not being discovered, watching the various tourists, and facing nature quietly.

“Drop” – Fire (the third viewing platform)
MAD installed multiple mirrors in the shape of water drops on the walls of the viewing platform, just like drilling holes in the dull and solid dome leading to an unknown space. People are looking for their own position between the two poles of reality and surrealism.

"Mirror Pond" - Water (the fourth viewing platform)
At the end of the light tunnel, a water surface reflects the semicircular hole into a complete circular time tunnel. The frosted stainless steel plate on the top wall of the cave reflects the light of the mountains, waters and sky outside into the tunnel, blurring the boundary between inside and outside, and the sparkling water surface also blurs the real sky and clouds. Light becomes a paintbrush, and the changes of water, sunlight and weather become paint, adding poetry to nature. People in it feel like floating in the clouds, walking in the world, and the water under their feet is the river water of Qingjin Gorge. At the boundary between reality and illusion, people may find a channel for dialogue with the distant in their hearts.

"Tunnel of Light" is an attempt by MAD to create an artistic experience, which tries to transform people from pure observers to real experiencers; it also provides an atmosphere for people in nature to imagine the relationship between themselves, the world, and nature.

Tunnel of Light
2018 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale

Total length of tunnel: about 750 meters
Design team: Ma Yansong, Hayano Yosuke, Dang Qun, Fujino Daiki, Miyamoto Kazushi, Ishigami Yuki
Cooperating architect: Green sigma Co., Ltd.