Dream of Kiwanosato
2019 - on going
In 2019, we launched an annual summer architecture and design school in a rural village in Yamagata prefecture. It is part of the Grizedale Arts’ wider initiative ‘Dream of Kiwanosato’. We built a bee house, together with 20 international participants and the staff members including the photographer Motoko Fujita, the artists Andreas Von Knobloch and Tanad Williams, and the director of Grizedale Arts Adam Sutherland.
We reconstructed the 18th century Slovenian apiary by Anton Jansa, using traditional Japanese wattle and daub and carpentry techniques. All the materials were sourced locally, including the bamboo from the mountain behind the site.
The rural villages in Japan face declining population and aging. Many houses are left empty and if it is not looked after it crumbles down very quickly. Our project is about searching an alternative way to revitalise the aging community. By bringing foreign students to look at the place with outsiders’ view, we may be able to find new ways to use the resources available, in order to create a sustainable economy mutually beneficial to both locals and visitors.
The first thing we did was to harvest materials for our construction; recycling mud and reclaiming roofing clay tiles from the old house. We went to the mountain to chop bamboo, and learnt the technique of splitting them from the villagers.
The school is not only about building but a lot about collecting materials and learning how to treat them. In this way we can directly engage with the landscape and understand the place’s geographical, cultural, social and economic situation. It is about sensual and tactile experiences. It is about being outdoor and close to nature, recognising that the world is not only for humans but also for bugs and animals.
We invited a master plasterer from the nearby town to teach us the practical skill of how to make a wattle and daub wall using split bamboo lathes. We also learnt the traditional Japanese carpentry at first hand, because we were surrounded by the examples. The village itself became a construction text book.
We will go back to the village every summer to slowly develop the abandoned rice field into a productive bee garden over the course of next 10 years. The detail of learning programme can be found here https://dreamofkiwanosato.org
Participants:
Cassie Kim, Yessica Rincon Toro, Ben Machintosh, Leo Deleuze, Eleanor Catlin, Kieran Gibson, Aleca Haeger, Ahmed Al-Attar, Alfred Hatch, George Sinclair, Blanka Ciborowska, Emilie Mitchell, Ellie Pritchard, Anthony Oconner, Daekyum Rho, Yunkyung Kam, Hayat Elhusseini, Abrar Tamboli, Martina Coyle, Abigail Holsborough
Collaborators:
Villagers of Kiwanosato, Shimonoseki, Yanaguchi Prefecture, Japan
Akira Ushijima (Yamaguchi University)
Kiyoshi Fukuda (Plaster specilaist)
Daigo Kimura (Kongo Juki Shimonoseki)
Photos by Motoko Fujita
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