Setouchi Triennale

Notable permanent fixtures include a series of concrete museums on Naoshima designed by architect Tadao Ando, as well as the Teshima Art Museum (2010), designed by Ryue Nishizawa featuring Rei Naito's Matrix, and the Art House Project (1998-present) on Naoshima, a series of commissions involving architects and artists who restore abandoned homes and other buildings and reinvent the spaces through artistic intervention.

[10]: 15  Both museums were designed by Tadao Ando, and feature his signature material of concrete while exhibiting a keen attentiveness towards environmental context, artistic content, and the affective potentials of space.

[6] Over the past several iterations, the festival has expanded to encompass a greater period of time by being broken into spring, summer, and fall sessions, and the number of participating venues has increased from eight to fourteen.

Since 2009, a volunteer nonprofit organization called the Koebi-tai (Little Shrimp Squad) has assisted with daily operations, visitor experience, as well as serving as liaisons between local residents and the festival.

[12]: 465 The Fukutake family has stated that plans for the 2025 iteration include a new three-story, partially underground museum on Naoshima focused on Asian artists, as well as the renovation of a former junior high school on Teshima into a gallery space.

For example, Motoyuki Shitamichi, whose practice involves immersion into the community and its local affairs, move to Naoshima with his family to distance himself from the bustle of major cities and pursue a long-term project on the industrial history of the island.

[14]: 58  Some critics have also called attention to the incongruence between Kitagawa and the organizers' insistence on shifting away from the culture of the metropolitan "art world" and the inclusion of works by internationally recognized figures such as Yayoi Kusama, Marina Abramović, and Olafur Eliasson.

[16]: 147  As such, it is difficult to generalize the effects and role of the festival on the overall Setouchi region, as resident and tourist experiences, artistic approaches, and social contexts vary widely across the island and port city communities.