Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan admits it feels strange to be in Japan at all. “It’s kind of a miracle,” he says on a bus making its way through Niigata Prefecture. The artist is visiting for the opening of his new work called “The Objects from Another Place” at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2024. Bright green rice paddies fly by the window as soft, white curtains hang over the dark mountains, clouds that resemble another art installation in the sparsely populated region.
It took Kadan three days to reach Japan from Kyiv for the art festival, now in its ninth edition. The political weight of “Objects” feels out of step with the rest of the hyper-local new artworks of the triennale. At the same time, it brings a welcome urgency from the outside world.
Kadan’s piece, erected at a former power station in the Tsunan region of the sprawling art site, is light and reflective. The thin wire structures resemble space objects — a rocket, a shooting star — but with lines that are wavy, appearing melted, as if rippling with the heat and humidity of Niigata.