Japan's creative industries are world renowned, yet the country's education system more often than not is perceived as a grueling succession of cram schools and formulaic exams that prepare its youth for a life of apparent conformity.
As Japan becomes ever more reliant on Cool Japan-driven "soft power" to promote its creativity, this discrepancy with education is not only becoming impossible to ignore, but also a potentially damaging undervaluation of young potential. Shining a light on this student talent pool is Gakuten, a new event from the group responsible for the Design Festa biannual international art fair. There's only one requirement of Gakuten participants — that they be enrolled in an educational institution.
"The whole concept first came about simply because we got too big for the Big Sight venue where we currently hold Design Festa — we became too successful," explains PR manager for Design Festa Sarah Feinerman. "We were having to turn away potential exhibitors in their hundreds, and there was no way of adding any more capacity. So we realized we needed to come up with a new event."
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