‘The 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial 1999′, which is actually the fifth of the Asian Art Shows but restarts as a new series, focuses on the potentiality inherent in the recent Asian art to create the new channels for communication, under the theme ‘Communication: Channels for Hope’. This theme does not only inherit and integrate the themes of the last two exhibitions, ‘Symbolic Visions in Contemporary Asian Life’ for the 3rd Show, and ‘Realism as an Attitude’ for the 4th Show, but also try to explore the possibility of Asian art taking root in each community, city, and society, and contributing to the global society, through contemplating no the free form of region as well as on the role for art to play in the society’.