Kyōto YouMe Triennale is an international platform on the theme of the Meaning of Making. The rise of AI is shaking the place of thinking itself. And yet the question of what making means to people has not been explored in depth, and art, design and craft are still mostly discussed apart from one another. Even in English, make, create, produce, craft and design are used rather loosely.

This conference lays out a path for rethinking them. The programme has four discussions and four presentations.

It opens with a quiet conversation between Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ester Coen. Since she was wrongfully detained in Iran in 2016, Nazanin has drawn worldwide attention as a symbol of hostage diplomacy. Ester is an art historian and curator specialising in the twentieth-century avant-garde.

The exhibitions follow. From Shōsei-en we present three shows: Manifesto; Liberty London's I Am. We Are. Liberty; and Adaptive Radiation, a group exhibition of contemporary art that starts from Japanese craftsmanship. We also introduce the exhibitions from India, Qatar and Italy at Jūshin Kaikan — including photographs from Afghanistan, where humanity first found the colour blue, and a work made with the artist's own blood. Designers from YouMe Open will present their work too.

The second half begins with two discussions on where luxury is heading. Then in-house designers from major companies talk about how stepping outside existing frameworks changes the way they deal with legitimacy and authenticity.

The conference is co-organised by the Kyōto YouMe Triennale Executive Committee and the 4D Conference, an academic design conference that Ritsumeikan University's College of Arts and Design will host in 2027. This day is also an introduction to it.

If you work in art, design or craft — as a practitioner, a researcher or simply as someone who loves it — please look through the speakers' profiles. You will find plenty of people you want to talk to and swap cards with.

Hiroyuki Anzai