TOKYO GO!

An Alternative Shopping Experience!

I had a bit of time today exploring an area of Tokyo called Kappabashi which is where there is a concentration of kitchenware, ceramics and plastic food shops for the catering industry. We can across this gem of a terrifying shopping experience in a ceramic shop. The delicate pottery is stacked floor to ceiling and rammed into every nook and cranny and even the floor space so that you are left with nowhere to stand. Makes it difficult to look at it or buy anything but rather fabulous as an installation!

The Value of Art after March 11? Or perhaps ‘The Value of Art in a disaster?’

One of the questions that has been reverberating around the On Site Lab as we think about New Community Design in the context of the March 11 triple disaster for Japan is whether or not art, and by extension artists, have anything of value to offer. When over 500km of coastal areas of Japan are still devastated by the tsunami, and many, many people have lost their homes and livelihood. When Fukushima nuclear power station still teeters on the edge of scientists’ capacity to keep the plant under ‘control’. When over 15,000 people have died and over 3,000 are still missing… ART?!

As an artist I am biased. I think Art is of value and importance in daily life but also in these terrible situations partly out of instinct. And partly because I wouldn’t bother to sweat it (or the accompanied mostly unpaid lifestyle) unless I had a certain conviction that what I was doing was useful.

One of the exciting things that has opened up for me in the last few days, is hearing Japanese people dealing with the reality of the March 11 disaster really fleshing out why they think art is important.

On Sunday 18th (day 2 of the lab) Eiji Hato, Professor of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo came to talk to us. Hato San (San is a term of respect) is involved in disaster planning for the city of Tokyo, and in the reconstruction planning of Rikuzentakata area. Obviously this involves vast amounts of logistics and scenario visualisation, reviewing the data gathered from the disaster itself as well as extensive community engagement. Difficult job. Hato San spoke very eloquently about the role art and creativity can play. When asked directly about the value of art post 3.11 he spoke about the need of ‘expression’ for people affected. Japanese culture is very private and public emotion is rarely shown (a generalisation but one that seems to hold some truth). He felt strongly about the need for some avenue for people affected to express themselves. I suppose this is a kind of art therapy argument for art – but it was exciting to hear a urban-planner talk about it’s importance. In a sense, with all it’s logistical complication, building infrastructure is perhaps easier than rebuilding people.

Then on Tues 20th, artist and film-maker Hikaru Fujii ( http://hikarufujii.com/ ) came and presented two of projects – video works made with a homeless community in Tokyo, and one about Project Fukushima – a project to run a festival focused on music in Fukushima city itself.

In the mission statement for Project Fukushima it states:

“Some may feel that this is no time for a festival, given that Fukushima is faced not only with the damage of the earthquake and tsunami, but also with a crippled nuclear power plant for which solutions are no where in sight.

Despite that, or rather precisely for that reason, we believe that we need music and poetry and art that hold the potential of pointing us to a possible viewpoint on and direction for how to confront reality.”

Says it all really.

Find out more about Project Fukushima on :

http://www.pj-fukushima.jp/en/project.html

Started by Michiro Endo, Otomo Yoshihide and Ryoichi Wago, the first Project Fukushima festival took place in August 2011.

Process, process, process

From Saturday the 17th we have been taking part in a collaborative workshop here at Tokyo Wonder Site. Split into 3 groups of 8 people – each group consisting of some UK-based artists (British, Irish and Portugese) and some Tokyo-based artists (Japanese, Americans, Portugese) and multiple disciplines – artists, architects, designers, illustrators, musicians… Somehow our challenge is to come up with a collaborative response in our groups to the On Site Lab theme – New Communitiy Design in the context of March 11. Working through cultural differences and language barriers; inidividual hang-ups and group dynamics – and perhaps BECAUSE of those things rather than in spite of coming up with creative responses.

After a fairly generic team-building / intros day on Saturday (day off on Monday) both Sunday and Tuesday were pretty full-on, scoring perhaps 9 out of 10 on the intense scale! This is partly due to any group of 8 individuals thrown together in a room full of strip lighting. But also because of the very meaty and challenging topic we are discussing in a short space of time. By Saturday the 24th we have to present our work to TWS staff, CCW staff and members of the public. Thankfully, we have reached the point in our group where we have agreed some principles to guide our work. Rather than designing reconstruction plans for new towns in the disaster-affected zone (phew) we are concerned with what is:

– local

– small but scaleable

– interactive installation (referencing things like a tree-house rather than specifically art-world concepts)

– invites public participation

I’m hoping that today we will get out and about on some research expeditions (getting in some fresh air and natural light) and define who are ‘public’ is.

Challenge Anneka

So I felt a bit down today. A combination of things I think. I had some spouse withdrawal and then was tired and confused by time difference which resulted in me missing our appointed skype time. Due to Mr B. being away this weekend it meant it looked like we wouldn’t speak until Monday. Up to now skype has helped keep some of the missing at bay and I was so thankful we caught a few minutes ‘together’ later on…

I think as well that some of the emotions from our intense trip to the north to see the disaster areas are catching up with me. To see destruction on that maginitude is something you can’t really compute. For some of my japanese friends on the trip they were encouraged as it was so much improved since the early chaotic and terrible days of March 11. However, it was my first experience of the area and it is actually very apolcalyptic still.

I had loads of things I wanted to do (include work on some critical writing due in soon for the MA, apply for an opportunity and get to see a new bit of Tokyo). Instead I found myself feeling really quite apathetic. I’m normally a go-go person. I just about managed to do some laundry and post a package to the UK. Even those things felt a bit challenge anneka if you know what I mean! Thankfully I got talked into putting some lipstick on and going to an arts-communication-food laboratory (ie. artists cooking and eating together). It was good to wear lipstick and to be with people.

The On-Site Lab we are taking part in starts tomorrow. It’s an intensive 7 day project with the 10 of us from the UK and 20 Japanese artists. This is the 6th collaborative workshop TWS have run like this and the ‘theme’ of this one is ‘Building New Communities’. It is very much responding to the context of March 11 and the Japanese questionning how their current society functions. I hope we can navigate this ‘theme’ in an interesting way together. I’m anticipating a lot of politeness tomorrow!

Info on the On-Site Lab:

http://www.tokyo-ws.org/english/archive/2012/02/on…

the day the tsunami came

shaking first then 30 minutes warning

flee to higher ground

but lanes blocked with the flight of cars

elderly too infirm to move at speed

primary school drowns

safe places not safe enough

within the reach

of a 40 metre high in places

wall of water

consuming everything in it’s path

now some tentative housing

rebuilt in the tsunami’s path

family mart convinience store

alone

in massive plots of now empty land

where once were roads

the roads alone remain

snaking around invisible homes

the invisible present here

sorting of the stinking rubbish

large trees, tree roots, crushed cars

neatly in piles

bringing order out of chaos

brand new telegraph poles line the roads

and still the search for 3,000 missing

continues

I worry about disaster tourism

but the old man beams to see

visitors to what is left

a sign that outsiders care

or at the least some money spent

in hostel or bar

those who remain

who choose to stay

must find a way

I worry about walking on the unseen

graves beneath my feet

find some jewellery

amongst the rubble

I reach out and touch it

it touches me back

a cold hand on my spine

foundations of what-once-were

lie exposed – carcass of the home

everything ground down

fragments of pottery

toys

like a more violent pompeii

happened yesterday

encounter the sublime

force of nature

beyond the possible

building tossed on it’s side

tanker strewn across the motorway

cars hang from roof trusses

boats everywhere they shouldn’t be

catch myself in awe

and then feel repulsion

as I take photographs

tears shed

stand with japanese now-friends

silent crying

looking at the shrine

drink offerings for family dead

and in the service station

Ichiro talks of elders

laughing, crying and singing all at once

no place for irony

or intellectualism

we listen together to the Beatles

let it be

go for future

We travelled with artist Ichiro Endo on his ‘go for future’ bus from Tokyo to Sendai to Oshimato, and then around the Onhanto area with Tokyo Wonder Site staff and a curator from 1333.

http://www.goforfuture.com/

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