The poster exhibition of Ogaki Matsuri festival

There is “Ogaki Poster Museum” in Gifu Keizai University, Ogaki city, Gifu prefecture.
It was opened in 1996 as the first museum for poster art in Japan.
“Japan International Poster Museum” in the premises of Gifu Keizai University, Ogaki City, Gifu Prefecture.
It was opened in 1996 as the first museum for poster art in Japan.
Since then, we repeated four exhibitions a year, including the “National High School Poster Competition” and the “Ogaki International Invitation Poster Exhibition”, and the number of posters currently stored exceeds 10,000.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Left/Ayumi Kiryu(Japan) 　　　　　　 Right/Patrycja Longawa(POLAND)

Currently at the Ogaki Poster Museum, “The poster exhibition of Ogaki Matsuri Festival” is being held.
These are posters of this year’s excellent prize selected carefully from among 227 entries.
We talked with Mr. Fujio Hori, the director of the same building and chairman of the poster exhibition of the Ogaki Matsuri Festival committee.

– Please tell me the history of the poster exhibition of the Ogaki Matsuri Festival executive committee.

Previously, I started “Ogaki International Invitation Poster Exhibition” and invited the posters from prominent designers around the world for 21 years.
Under such circumstances, the Ogaki Festival was registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016, I reexpected the meaning of holding a poster exhibition in Ogaki.
“How do the people of Ogaki really feel happy?”
Then, I felt a little anxious….
The poster museum aim ”Establishing an international style of visual language”, so I worried about “how should be the posters in the first place” and also the original way of the posters themselves.
In recent years, by the digital signage (electronic signage), the way of the poster has been changed, but what we have reached was “to deliver good information on good paper, good printing technology, good design to the world”.

In this way, the “The poster exhibition of the Ogaki Matsuri festival executive committee” was launched in May 2007, and invited the design of the Ogaki Festival’s poster from designers from all over the world, and we printed it to Gifu’s traditional craft paper “Honminoshi”.And we decided to print by using the printing technique “silk screen” originated by Gujo Hachiman in Gifu.
More than 200 posters were gathered from 50 countries. We thank them for thier cooperation.We invited Mr. U. G. Sato of graphic designer and Mr. Yoshiyasu Nanbu of typographer as judges and we chose 2 best awards and 50 winners selected.

By printing on the Mino paper, it was very interesting because everything was very beautiful when it was transparent to the light, and the sensitivity is different from the country. There is also such a way of catching!

– What kind of things do you want to do at the committee from now on?

As a result of the poster exhibition, I would like to make it a purpose that can be coming to Ogaki from all over the world. As well as the existence of genuine posters,　recently we have SNS and the Web so I would like to continue to use such IT technology well.
This year, we will hold exhibitions at six venues in Gifu with the cooperation of public facilities and companies, so now we can only see the exhibits at this poster museum, but next fiscal year we would like to put the pieces to the city.
For example, it would be fun to put posters on the streets, to try to put LEDs in the museum to enjoy in the evening, and to use free shops or show windows in shopping streets.

There is an image. It is a city called French Chaumont, which is a very small city, but the church and shops are full of posters. I wish I could have seen such a scenery in Ogaki.
Of course, sightseeing can be caught in a wider area, so I’m happy if people from all over the world come to not only Ogaki, and also Mino and Gujo, and they are interested in Gifu.

– Please tell us your feelings towards Ogaki where you are from?

When asking “What kind of city is Ogaki?”, Everyone answers “normal city” (laugh).

It is said that every regional city is exhausted and the community is hollowing out, but I think that it is important to dig good things also in “common town” up and feature it.

Ogaki is rich in nature as typified by the Nobi Plain, with rich and clean water springing. There is also the cultural attraction about Matsuo Basho, furthermore there are eight listed companies against the population of 160,000 people.
This poster exhibition is supported by companies in Ogaki, and I define the companies in which the head office is located in Ogaki as a “local power company.”

The fact that the headquarters is located in Ogaki means the employment number increases there, and the business partners can be established within the region, so the relationship of the industry is enhanced. And since the top of the company is often growing up in the region, they has a attachment to the area.
And, in towns where there are many local power enterprises, interaction with the town will emerge as well as increasing the input linkage.
If the company gets good images, it will lead to good images of the city. On the contrary, it can be PR for the companies that companies are based in the rich city.