A university opens up a town. In Yamagata City, an art festival is held once every two years, organized by the Tohoku University of Art and Design. Because a university creates it, education and expression are continuous; students, faculty, and invited artists make the festival together. The fields it covers are wide, art, craft, design, music, performance, talks, the fences between genres set low. The venues are not only the university; works extend to the city's cultural facilities and into the streets. Tohoku has long been regarded as far from the center, but to be far also means a distinctive culture can grow, the quiet contemplation of a deep-snow land. This festival carries a will to express in Tohoku, and from Tohoku. Contemplation over glamour, depth over bustle.