The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2026 is being held over 16 days from February 6 (Fri) to February 23 (Mon, public holiday), 2026, primarily at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum and across Yebisu Garden Place. Since its inaugural edition in 2009, the festival has taken place annually in Yebisu, presenting a multifaceted view of contemporary moving image and art. Through exhibitions, screenings, performances, talks, and regional collaborations, it has continuously explored the present and future of visual culture.

photo by ©FASHION HEADLINE
This year’s overarching theme is “あなたの音に | 日花聲音 | Polyphonic Voices Bathed in Sunlight.” Rooted in Taiwanese language and introduced by Main Curator Yu-Hsuan Chiu, the theme evokes a polyphonic world in which diverse voices, cultures, and languages resonate together. Rather than eliminating misunderstandings, dissonance, or misreadings that inevitably arise within society, the festival embraces them as overlapping sounds—an attitude that runs consistently throughout the entire program.

photo by ©FASHION HEADLINE

A Multi-Layered Program Resonating Across the City
The appeal of the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2026 lies not in any single format such as exhibitions or screenings, but in the way multiple experiences unfold and overlap across time and urban space, all rooted in moving image practices.


Chang En-Man, Snail Paradise Trilogy: Setting Sail or Final Chapter, 2021photo by ©FASHION HEADLINE
Within the exhibition galleries of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, photography, video, sound, and performance intersect to explore themes such as voice, environment, memory, and misinterpretation in a spatial and sensory manner. On the lower floors, soundscapes emerge from notions of movement and circulation, while ascending through the building reveals expressions born from linguistic and social systems—and from the “gaps” within them. Formless sounds resonate both inside and outside the galleries, destabilizing the boundary between vision and hearing and directly engaging the viewer’s bodily perception.

Kyunchome | Crossing the Ocean with a Goldfish (2022) | Prayers Dissolved in the Sea (2022–2023)
photo by ©FASHION HEADLINE
On the museum’s third floor, newly commissioned video works by artists based in Japan are presented as part of the museum’s ongoing Commission Project. These works quietly attend to overlooked landscapes and everyday human activities, resonating with the festival’s central theme while reexamining the current condition of moving image expression.

pilgrim, 2022
photo by ©FASHION HEADLINE
Meanwhile, off-site exhibitions unfold in the Center Plaza and Skywalk of Yebisu Garden Place, where artworks intervene directly into the urban environment. Chance encounters unique to outdoor settings draw in passersby, blurring the boundary between art and everyday life. Here, moving images emerge not as isolated exhibits but as integral elements of the city’s visual landscape.

Display image of Kiss, or Dual Monitors 2026, 2026
photo by Takaaki Arai

The screening programs feature a diverse lineup ranging from narrative cinema to experimental film, including works shown in Japan for the first time. Post-screening talks with artists and guests further expand the experience. Through this dialogue between exhibitions and screenings, moving images shift from objects to be merely watched into subjects for reflection and discussion.

In addition, participatory programs—including live events, performances, workshops, and artist talks—are woven throughout the festival, creating pathways for visitors to think, engage, and converse. Experiences in which voice and body, sound and space overlap lend a fluid rhythm to the festival as a whole.



Platforms for Dialogue, Memory, and the Future of Moving Images
Through its symposium programs, curators, researchers, and artists from Japan and abroad gather to discuss moving images, photography, language, and archives. These conversations reframe the future of visual culture from a multicultural perspective, positioning the festival as a vital site for intellectual exchange. The festival also presents special selections from the Tokyo Metropolitan collections, including video works, photographs, and archival materials. By moving back and forth between history and the present, these displays quietly question how past expressions continue to resonate and be reactivated today.

Ripples Reflected by Picture Sugorokuphoto by ©FASHION HEADLINE
This year, the regional collaboration program has expanded significantly. Cultural institutions, dining districts, and bars throughout the Yebisu area now participate, allowing the entire neighborhood to function as part of the festival. Moving between museum interiors and city streets, daytime and nighttime, encountering works along the way—this experiential circulation itself has become a central element of the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2026.



Thinking the Present Through Overlapping Voices
The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2026 does not aim to provide clear answers. Instead, it offers spaces of pause and reflection, where differing voices and perspectives overlap, diverge, and occasionally resonate.

What emerges through photography, moving images, sound, and the body is a way of seeing the world that resists linear narratives. Multiple voices coexist simultaneously, each continuing to sound without being erased. In a contemporary society marked by division and friction, this condition itself feels like a quiet yet meaningful proposition of hope.

Extending beyond the museum into the city itself, the festival transforms encounters with artworks into processes of walking, crossing paths with others, and recalibrating one’s own senses. By situating oneself within a polyphonic world, visitors are invited to listen closely—perhaps quietly—to their own voice. That time and space are carefully prepared here.