Japan
Highlights
Michinoku Homeward: Walking towards the Northeast
Michinoku Homeward: Walking towards the Northeast (2021) is a very personal documentary about Michinoku, Okuyama’s home region in north-eastern Japan. Michinoku is the ancient name for the area, first appearing in a 7th century chronicle, and means “the end of the road”. 2011 was an unforgettable year of disasters there, including a catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, causing more than 22,000 deaths. Okuyama was devastated by her powerlessness as a native of the region living abroad. Ten years later, in 2021, she walked 400km following the Edo period “Kaidо ̄ ” route - officially created at the beginning of the 17th century - from the zero mile point in Tokyo to her home town of Yamagata. Michinoku Homeward is a photo documentary of this trip, combining journalistic topicality and the poetic feelings that occurred to her along the way, capturing her way home with an awareness that it might disappear.
Open Call for the Research Residency Program 2027 ｜ Open Call ｜ Archives ｜ Tokyo Arts and Space
“Research Residency Program” gives opportunities to conduct research on arts and culture in the city of Tokyo, targeting both international and local creators in a wide range of fields. Source: Open Call for the Research Residency Program 2027 ｜ Open Call ｜ Archives ｜ Tokyo Arts and Space
• Feel Good Friday – A virtual tour of downtown Tokyo with historicity
Angus Lockyer is a historian of modern Japan, who taught at SOAS University of London for fifteen years. Jelena Sofronijevic is an audio producer, dedicated to exploring the intersection of politics and culture. They have collaborated on historicity.
historicity Tokyo
1. Imperial Capital circles the palace and city's global history (06/23). 2. Commoners’ Capital explores the low, working city northeast (06/23). 3. Neo-Tokyo goes west to find entertainment, and what cities might be (07/23). + A bonus train episode.
Where am I? A dislocated soundwalk
Where are we when we walk? Are we here, in this place that our feet move through, or are we there, lost in thoughts and memories of other times and places? This playful and dream-like soundwalk aims to throw these questions into confusion. It can be taken while in Prespa or anywhere else, including indoors.
• Drifting Through Bodies and Auguring Spaces: Terminalian Drift
The experimental novel *Terminalian Drift* features a narrating voice inhabiting André Cadere's used skin while drifting through a district in Osaka, Japan, exploring the fluid relationships between body, place, and identity. The novel intertwines fictional and historical layers of actual locations to enact a geopoetic process, using specific events—real or imagined—to complicate general historical narratives and embody the city as a mutable personal skin.
Walking their alpacas – Japan Today
Shinya Ide and Shion Ito walk alpacas Akane and Satsuki in the early morning in Tokyo. The couple operate an indoor petting zoo, Alpaca Land. The woolly natives of South America spend time with visitors who pay 1,000 yen for 30 minutes petting them, hugging them and burying faces in their… Source: Walking their alpacas
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Articles on WLC
Articles elsewhere
The Japanese Interval Walk
The tours that I tend to write about tend to be about something. That is to say, they have a subject, a route, a way of navigating you along it and something to impart along the way. That's pretty standard. There is, however, another angle I haven't pa...
Interview with Tom Marioni
As part of the release of the hardcover release of my book, Walking as Artistic Practice (softcover comes out in April!), I’m going to be publishing some brief interviews with the various artists, authors, researchers, creatives, collectives, and platforms whose art practice, written material, or other works I cite and mention. My seventh interview in […]
Reaching out to you…
Dear Friend, I am writing to extend my immense gratitude for your support of Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama over these last 16 years! 2022 was generous and exciting year, transitioning from an online presence to in-person classes, workshops, and performances. With my husband Todd Carroll, we have been collaborating non-stop from one project to the next, and […]
Walk with Craig across Japan
Are you up for a vicarious walk across Japan starting tonight? Craig Mod – writer of Roden and Ridgeline newsletters – is inviting people to join him on his durational walk 500km from Tokyo to Kyoto. It starts when he turns 40 at midnight tonight and he will walk daily until the end of November. […]
