Showa-gurashi Project

After the Great East Japan earthquake, many people wanted to move to Okayama prefecture. My family and I were also in the same situation. Then I started this project with colleagues in which we have prepared for welcoming such people to the rural area in Okayama. We made a little tour by this participants could spend time with local people by learning something from them. For example, we learned about traditional foods (Umeboshi, Konnyaku, tea, amazake, and so on). We walked the streams with local people. We picked many gorgeous flowers at the top of the mountain where an old lady has been growing them by herself. We also encouraged local children to make a film interviewing older people growing up there through workshops, etc.

Our project has run supported by the Okayama prefecture government and Soja city government. While I was a representative of our organization, I realized that I needed to have a good policy for both participants and local people, or rather, for our future society. It means that I should at least draw some preferable images out for this area. I had met many local people and had various relationships with them. These relationships made me strong, warm, and amazed. I sometimes found it hard to deal with their upset attitude or negative impression when they faced unknown or different cultures and thought. I noticed it is a diversity issue that we will address. Although, no matter how I was disappointed with that many times, I deeply loved to work with ordinary people who have been living there just simply nice.

They told me many stories of them, which were amazingly impressive for me.

year

2013-2017

title

Showa-gurashi Project

website

http://showagurashi.net/

Products

Every year I determined to make something site-specific to connect between local people and their history.

Film of Showa

Making films, children did everything. They planed the detail of the interview for elder persons, took a shooting it, and edited it. The professional team led by director Keiko Kishimoto made a great contribution to us. We also proudly took place screening this film in Showa area.

Spinning home-made cotton into thread

A grandma said she used to knit socks by spinning thread for her family a long time ago. Impressed that, we started a cotton project. Growing cotton in the field rent from local people, I collected old types of equipment kept putting into the warehouse and asked people to fix them. Finally, I managed to be able to spin the cotton we made into thread. Another is those who are good at knitting finalized socks using homemade cotton. This project is still running by local people step by step.

A hut for stove oven of pizza

Showa area should be challenging for architecture students to learn renovation old empty houses. For that, first of all, they tried to make a little hut for stove oven of pizza in outside. It created a good bond with local people. It also concluded to the new big project in the next year. They built a rest space as the second project near ‘Nacchan-chi’ house where had been empty for a long time until it began to use it as a shared space in this community.

OVERVIEW

After I retired, this project is ongoing and developing by great staff contains newcomers through this program. They still hold many empty houses in this area. It is seemingly just the same issue as other rural areas in the world currently. This project keeps providing a tour guide to the houses for people interested in living in the area.

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