Climate change, human activity, and ongoing development have increasingly brought wildlife into closer contact with human settlements. In recent years, the communities surrounding the Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (ACAC), located at the foot of the Hakkoda Mountains, have also experienced a growing number of encounters with wild animals, including bears, prompting renewed reflection on our relationship with other living beings.

Under human systems of governance, the forest in which ACAC is situated is managed as human territory. Yet while we seek to use the forest, draw boundaries, and secure safety, plants and animals also continue to inhabit and shape this land through their own ways of living. These overlapping presences reveal relationships that cannot be understood solely through human perspectives.

Land & Learning begins from the idea of this forest as a “common land”—a place traversed and shared by diverse species within the broader processes of nature. Over the course of two years, the project explores what it might mean for humans and other species to share this forest, and how such relationships might be negotiated through learning programs, exhibitions, and other activities.

In 2026, under the subtitle Becoming with the (common) land—even if we can’t be together, the project will bring together fieldwork, workshops, and public talks to create opportunities for collective learning through both knowledge and practice.

The conditions surrounding a common land are never fixed; they are continually reshaped by the changing relationships between humans and other species. Land & Learning likewise embraces change as a premise, evolving in response to the circumstances and questions that emerge over time.

The Four Projects of Land & Learning

Hakkoda Jomon Lab
Together with artists and researchers, participants explore the Hakkoda mountain range and the ways of life connected to it. Through encounters with the region’s natural environment and local knowledge, the project considers the possibilities of common land as a place shared by multiple species.

What Remains, What Disappears
Through conversations with artists, this project reconsiders the future of outdoor sculptures installed in the forests of ACAC from the perspective of what remains and what disappears.

Shores of Land and Expression
Through research into geologically distinctive landscapes in Aomori, as well as the histories and local narratives rooted in those places, this project explores the stories that emerge between living and non-living beings.

Co-Creation
Through collaborative production between artists and local residents, this project explores the possibilities of artistic practice shaped through engagement with community.