Chinatsu Shimizu | With the Gesture of Neighbors Helping Each Other: "PIKO HOUSE" and "Picture Book Plaza"
Chinatsu Shimizu visits "PIKO HOUSE" and "Picture Book Plaza" in a southern Miyagi town, portraying post-disaster community building and mutual aid.Summary
This article is a report by Chinatsu Shimizu, who has moved to a town at the foot of the Zao Mountains in southern Miyagi Prefecture, on small local places. Since the 2011 disaster, she has sought expressions and places in Tohoku that quietly exist within everyday practices and support people's lives.
The first place, "PIKO HOUSE," is a former shop rented by Nui and Lisa. It has no sign and serves variously as a occasional canteen, a private tutoring space, and more. After facing the limitations of urban nuclear families and problems in education, the two wanted to create a place where they themselves would want to go. They run the "One-Seven Night Market" once a month, bringing together local farmers' ingredients and people of diverse backgrounds, including Sri Lankan and South African residents.
The second place, "Picture Book Plaza," is a self-run library in a closed nursery school that began as a base for delivering picture books to children in disaster-affected areas. Maki has kept it open for 15 years, aiming to provide a place where not only children can play freely but also adults can relax. It sustains itself through services like "Cat's Paw Service" and user-initiated "club activities," rooted in mutual aid.
The author depicts these places as operating outside conventional measures of efficiency and expertise, with the gesture of neighbors helping each other. She draws on Naoya Hatakeyama's "Local Actuality: A View from Around Here," artists in Oaxaca, and the words of "stray people" in folk tales to ask what value lies in the modest act of one person responding to another.
(Source：artscape)