Hideaki Ogawa appointed Director of SIAF 2023–24

The Sapporo International Art Festival Executive Committee, chaired by Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto, is pleased to announce the appointment of Hideaki Ogawa as director of the Sapporo International Art Festival (SIAF) scheduled for the winter 2023–24.

Ogawa is co-director of Ars Electronica Futurelab, located in Linz, Austria. Like Sapporo, Linz is a City of Media Arts in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN). He has been involved in advanced media art initiatives for years.

As we prepare for the next SIAF, we aim to get the most from the strengths of Sapporo as a City of Media Arts and from the city’s appeal, in order to deliver an art festival that is full of surprises and discoveries to change the winter of Sapporo, through collaboration with existing local programs, such as the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Message from Hideaki Ogawa
The next SIAF will focus on the future—not the future someone else will create, but the future we will create ourselves. I believe that art provides a compass for us to move toward a future that we have yet to see.

My mission is to realize an art festival that serves as an engine of creativity that is open to the public. As we live in the 21st century amidst urgent unforeseeable global issues, such as the pandemic and climate change, what will be essential are future-oriented education, innovation, and symbiosis with the earth, nature, and technology. I hope to create an opportunity in Sapporo where people from all walks of life and of all ages will engage in trial and error through art and will discuss the future.

Hideaki Ogawa was born in Tokyo, Japan and based in Linz, Austria since 2007. Ogawa has served as an artist, curator and researcher at Ars Electronica, known as a global cultural institution in art and technology. Today, he is a co-director of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, an R&D division of Ars Electronica. He has been involved in numerous international cross-disciplinary projects, including innovative projects that use art as a catalyst to prototype the future and projects aimed at creating communities based on public participation and at implementing next-generation cultural and educational programs.

Visit SIAF website for the full press release and SIAF YouTube channel for the Ogawa’s video message.

Sapporo International Art Festival (SIAF) is a triennial international art festival in Sapporo to feature artworks and performances that respond to the times in which we live. The first edition, held in 2014, welcomed Ryuichi Sakamoto as guest director, and the second one, in 2017, had Otomo Yoshihide as guest director. The third one, slated for 2020, had a team of three directors—Taro Amano, Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka, and Kanoko Tamura—but it was cancelled due to the pandemic. The next edition is scheduled for the winter 2023–24.