About the Festival

Concept

The Nuchinuwa Jomon Festival imagines the Chatan Town Museum as a "home port" of the Jomon period, when people, goods and culture traveled across the sea. Visitors retrace some 7,000 years of exchange as crafts, food, performing arts, welfare and education come together in one harbor for a festival everyone can take part in.

The market is more than a place to shop. It is designed as a "Jomon Ichi," a marketplace of exchange, and a barter experience modeled on the values of the time is also being considered. Exchange, trade and circulation, the core of the festival's identity, run through every part of the event, from the market to the live stage.

The theme of the first festival is Jade (Hisui), in step with the Jomon exhibition opening at the museum on October 31. Jade, which crossed the sea thousands of years ago from Itoigawa in Niigata Prefecture, stands as a symbol of exchange. In future years, the theme will change to other items that traveled across the sea, such as pottery and shell ornaments, to tell the story of how exchange spread.

Event Overview