Continuous one-shot column Captivated by “ ” / Part 2 Captivated by Motoyuki Shitamichi’s “Movement”
prisoner of movement
A few years ago, I moved my base to Aichi. Freeloader at my wife's parents' house. Until then, I was based in Tokyo, but my current activities/work involve a lot of traveling and residence production.
Since I only go home for about one week a month, I have no idea what I am paying for the high monthly rent.
If you can think positively about ``parasitic living in your parents' home'' (and your wife's...), and take action, you won't be able to live on just the amount of rent you have in Tokyo.
My wife's parents' home is a unique house designed by her grandfather.
I'm kind of proud of this house because I have doubts about the current situation where houses are being built and then torn down in one generation all over Japan.
For about 10 years after graduating from university, I clung to the vague expectation that Tokyo would offer jobs, opportunities, and other things.
I don't think there's anything wrong with living a "parasitic" lifestyle, and I think we should have the courage and dialogue to move beyond the "normal" that previous generations created.
Living in Aichi, I found that it is a great base for traveling to the Kanto, Kansai, and overseas areas.
Masuo's life with his new family is quite exciting.
However, there are still a lot of jobs and interesting exhibitions and events in Tokyo, so I go to Tokyo about once every month or two, and when I have errands to pay for, I travel there.
Arrange to schedule all appointments at once.
I feel like I'm using Tokyo more efficiently than when I was just lazily living in Tokyo.
That's right, I'm a prisoner of movement.
When you're on a moving bus, train, or airplane, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.
Not a home, not a workplace, but a place that feels familiar and unfamiliar.
I can concentrate quite a lot if I carry a minimum amount of work and books in my bag for traveling. It's good to have nowhere to escape.
And when I look out the window from time to time, the scenery continues to change in various ways.
It's like a luxurious rental office. Aichi-Tokyo is just 1 hour and 45 minutes away by Shinkansen.
We don't need linear, do we? I think.
Since ancient times, Japanese people have valued settling down on the land, even if they are not farmers.
Most people still live permanently, but there have also been people who have been on the move for a long time, and for better or worse, I feel like I'm a nomadic person.
It has long been said that he has a sense of clothing that resembles that of a ``naked general.'' Tank top, backpack, sandals, umbrella...
Although the population will continue to decrease, the population will concentrate in cities, the number of vacant houses will increase in rural areas, and a situation similar to that of endemic people will develop.
I have seen projects to encourage young people to immigrate, but if the government were to carry out a cultural project that would make it possible for artists to travel within the country for free or at a low price, they would be moving all over the Japanese archipelago, and the blood flow would be slightly reduced. But I try to imagine that it might get better.
Like Tora-san, I think that artists and people who move often carry culture and exchange with the wind.
An artist pass similar to the Shinkansen pass for foreign tourists.
Shinkansen runs from Aomori to Kagoshima, domestic flights connect many places, and even ships connect the area.
If that happens, if we compare the Japanese archipelago to a body, capillaries and terminal ends may develop in a strange way.
So I left Nagoya, got on the Shinkansen bound for Shin-Yamaguchi, opened my PC, and am writing this article.
The scenery of my hometown of Okayama flows through the train window.
So far I have been talking about movement, but I really think that movement is also dependent on having a base, ``home''.
The photo book “torii” won the 1st “Iron Dog Heterotopia Literary Award”
One of the masterpieces of Motoyuki Shitamichi, who photographed ``torii gates left outside Japan's borders.''
SHITAMICHI Motoyuki
Graduated from Musashino Art University, Department of Art and Design, Department of Oil Painting in 2001. Dropped out of Tokyo College of Photography in 2003. The "Shape of War" series (2001-2005), which was published after spending four years researching and photographing the ruins of military facilities such as artillery batteries and fighter aircraft hangars, all over Japan, including the United States, Taiwan, Russia, South Korea, etc. He is known for his creative activities based on fieldwork in the area, such as his representative series ``TORII'' (2006-2012), in which he photographed torii gates that remain as remnants of the colonial era. His works are neither landscape documents nor archives of historical facts. Stories that have been buried in our lives and are on the verge of being forgotten, or everyday things that are too trivial to be clearly conscious, are brought to light through editing methods such as photographs, events, and interviews, and are brought to light in our modern lives. It is a ``re-presentation'' of events that are still continuous even for us. He won the Newcomer Award at the Gwangju Biennale in 2012.
