A city of art, culture and education

These included the Host Town Initiative, which was set up to allow people across Japan to interact with visitors and athletes from countries participating in the Olympic Games through sporting activities and cultural exchanges. In total, 533 local government authorities across the country are registered as Host Towns and 185 countries and regions from around the world.

Activities cover areas such as music, festivals, dance and food, with Host Towns running campaigns showcasing the food and drink of other countries and schools teaching their students about them. Since Tokyo 2020, local authorities around Japan have continued to run exchange events and workshops, extending the ties of friendship with other nations around the world.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Agora celebrated Olympism and the Olympic values through art installations, exhibitions and digital programmes. A product of Olympic Agenda 2020, it was inspired by the public assembly spaces – or agoras – of Ancient Greece and provided a point of connection between sport and culture.

Located in the Nihonbashi district in central Tokyo, the Olympic Agora featured, among other exhibits, a photography installation by Japanese artist Rinko Kawauchi, a giant illuminated sculpture of relay runners by Makoto Tojiki, and an interactive multimedia installation entitled Podium Memories, which brought iconic moments from Olympic history to life. Tokyo’s agora was also home to a permanent installation by the French artist Xavier Veilhan. Entitled “The Audience”, it comprises five figures of different ages, nationalities and genders, in the five colours of the Olympic rings, paying tribute to the spectators who come together to celebrate the Olympic Games around the world.

The Tokyo 2020 Agora also presented Japanese noren – traditional curtain-like fabric panels – created by five talented Olympians and one Paralympian, who used photography, painting, graffiti or graphic design to express their personal interpretation of the Olympic values and spirit. A number of these panels were donated to the Japan Olympic Museum for future exhibitions.

The Tokyo Festival celebrated the Japanese capital’s contemporary art scene and showcased its artistic and cultural attractions to the world. It featured Special 13, a selection of 13 art projects chosen from 2,436 proposals submitted from Japan and overseas and which sought to take culture out into the city’s streets.

For its part, the NIPPON Festival, which ran across Japan from April to September 2021, pursued objectives such as promoting a peaceful society through sport as a symbol of solidarity and the expression of Japanese culture to the rest of the world. The festival comprised three main programmes, one of which was a tour by a giant 10m puppet called MOCCO. Officially named “Rediscover Tohoku — MOCCO’s journey from Tohoku to Tokyo”, it took place 10 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and sought to increase interest in the Tohoku region, which was badly hit by the disaster, and encourage people to visit the region.

Finally, the Yoi, Don! Programme is a national education initiative aimed at schoolchildren and promoting the values of Olympism, diversity and the inclusion of people with disabilities and from different cultures around the world. “Yoi, Don!” is Japanese for “get set”, and the programme was set up with the aim of creating an environment in which the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games continue to be taught long after the Tokyo 2020 Games.  Free resources were made available to teachers online, as well as films on the Olympic and Paralympic values.