/ 2025 / Press / Performing Arts

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Tetsuya Okubo, Japan

In the climactic moment of Noto’s Abare Festival, men throw the mikoshi—sacred portable shrines—into rivers, the sea, or flames. They smash and shake it violently to call the gods. This destruction is seen as sacred, believed to invite the divine closer. Surrounded by fire and water, the mikoshi is finally submerged into the river—a purifying act of faith and frenzy.