The MIT Inter-University Program in Japan (MIT iUP)’s recent activities from Fall 2012 in the Minamisanriku region of Tohoku are now live for viewing in this video compilation by participant Vanessa Powell of the University of Gloucestershire.
BEYOND_3.11
Minamisanriku
南三陸町
The Work of MIT Japan 3.11 Initiative 2011-2012
an Exhibit at Gallery A4 TOKYO
February 2013
Visitors to the exhibit listen to Goto Kazuma, one of the residents of Minamisanriku, tell the story of his experience during and after the earthquake tsunami.
Take a virtual tour of the exhibit :
For more information, read the introduction to the BEYOND 3.11 exhibit, in English.
Shun Kanda recently gave a lecture at MIT to a group of students from Tohoku entitled “Power of Place, of People, as One.” He showcased the recently completed Garden Pavilione in Baba-Nakayama and the community-driven initiatives that have developed in the wake of 3/11. Also featured were creative ideas and new typologies for the future of coastal towns in Tohoku as they move to higher ground.
The students are all survivors of the 3/11 disaster who have joined the non-profit organization, Beyond Tomorrow. They are visiting the US to obtain first-hand accounts from leaders in New Orleans, New York, and Washington D.C. Their Boston visit was sponsored by the Fish Family Foundation.
A similar lecture was also given at University of Tokyo on July 29th, at the start of the Japan 3/11 Design Workshop.
Check out this excellent video, capturing the story of the Babadoru 5-chome community and the shelter designed for them by the Japan 3/11 Initiative team. The narrative was artfully created by Atsushi Miyazaki.
For Those Within From Those Abroad is a public presentation of works created during this Fall’s class Artistic Intervention: Creative Responses to Conflict and Crisis, within MIT’s Arts, Culture + Technology program. Two group projects on view explore the notion of a gift as a way of responding to situations of conflict and crises from afar. The students specifically address the people of Minami Sanriku that were severely affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region of Japan.
The event will take place in E15-001 (The Cube of the old Media Lab) on December 5 between 7 and 9 pm to see the gifts produced and the context behind them.
Artistic Intervention: Creative Responses to Conflict and Crisis is co-taught
this fall by Initiative collaborators Associate Professor and Program Head Ute Meta Bauer with Lecturer Jegan Vincent de Paul. Continue reading
Professors Shun Kanda and James Wescoat talked about their intervention in the tsunami hardest hit town of Minami-Sanriku in Japan. An intervention, MIT Japan 3/11, was created right after the disastrous tsunami that hit Japan in March this year. The images of the damage formed the collage of our news images for many days and many posts on Facebook read, ‘God Save Japan’. The presentation titled, “Beauty of Place: An Overnight Tragedy” described how overwhelming the task was. MIT collaborated with two universities in Japan, Miyagi University and Keio University. Continue reading
Mayor Jin Sato and other Minami Sanriku residents were recently interviewed by MSNBC, on rebuilding 8 months after the tsunami.
During this summer’s workshop, Jegen Vincent de Paul and Shun Kanda conducted a series of interviews in Minami-Sanriku with the help of the Japanese filmmaker and translator Takaharu Saito.
Watch an excerpt of interviews from “Minami-Sanriku: An Archaeology of People and Place” below:
Photo credit : Jegen Vincent de Paul
Jegen Vincent de Paul blogs on the “memory palace” created at the Iritani Junior High School in Minami Sanriku.