The city of Okayama was flattened by incendiary bombs in 1945. Many people died, more than 12,000 homes were destroyed and Okayama's centuries-old wooden castle burned to its stone foundations. In 1966, the donjon was rebuilt with modern concrete, which was likely made in Mizushima — a smoke-spewing industrial site near Okayama that produced and refined the materials that helped pave over the physical scars of World War II.
Since then, a less tangible force began wiping out regional communities in Japan: depopulation and economic decline. The solution is equally intangible.
How do you help a disappearing community? If you're curator Fram Kitagawa, you do it with contemporary art. Kitagawa pioneered the revivification-through-art approach in the early 2000s with his Echigo-Tsumari and Setouchi triennales, which have been successful in drawing tourists to dwindling regions.