Bandung-based animation team The Fox, The Folks which consists of Fadjar Kurnia, Rafico Lingga Adiyoga and Muhammad Fahry Aziz won top prize at Tokyo Light Festival 2021. The winners of the competition were announced last week at the closing ceremony that was held in the Meiji Jingu Gaien, Tokyo. 

The Fox, The Folks won two out of five categories, namely the Grand Prize and Audience Award. The artwork that the team submitted for the festival is titled “Through the Night”. As the grand prize winner, the team received the Tokyo Governor Trophy and ¥2,000,000 cash. As the audience award winner, they received another trophy and ¥10,000 cash. 

"We are very happy and we never thought that we would actually win. Especially if you look at the other competitors from other countries whose works are no less good. Even when our names were already mentioned we still couldn't believe it and we were left speechless. We dedicate this achievement to Indonesia. Thank you for all the support from all parties," said Fadjar in his remark. 

Indonesian Ambassador to Japan Heri Akhmadi proudly welcomed this achievement.

“Congratulations to The Fox, The Folks, we are very proud of this brilliant achievement as young Indonesians can be creative and be recognised by the international community despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Through their spectacular work which earned them a victory, they made the nation proud. We hope that with this achievement, the collaboration among Indonesian and Japanese artists could be enhanced," said Heri.

Tokyo Light Festival is a projection mapping art competition which combines the arrangement of light and sound in unique artworks. These artworks are then rigorously assessed by an international panel of experts. The title for this year’s festival is “1 Minute Project Mapping”. 

The competition was open from 1 July until 24 September 2021. 246 participants from 54 countries took part in the event. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 19 of the 246 participants are from Indonesia.