Project Art QQQ Fukushima x Seattle
Naomi Kasumi, my design professor and installation artist, invited me to be her assistant for a community based art project she planned on leading in Fukushima, Japan. The project would be titled ART QQQ in collaboration with the Japanese poet Ryoichi Wago, who published a book of poetry titled QQQ, and the Miraino Matsuri Fukushima organization.
Before departing Seattle we applied for grants, began ideating the project and designed flyers. Naomi had previously led art installation projects in Fukushima related to the Daiichi nuclear disaster and we wanted our project 8 years later to somehow incorporate the message "Don't forget". The other assistant, Neil, and I researched important symbols of Fukushima unrelated to the disaster and found the white rabbit to be a very important one. We then designed two versions of an informative flyer that we could print and distribute at our host temple, around town and online to raise awareness and increase community participation.
We did not know exactly what we would "make" until we were in Fukushima. Meeting locals and hearing their personal stories about the Daiichi nuclear disaster was very important before deciding anything. We knew we wanted to work in multiples (creating a lot of one thing) and eventually decided to make soft sculptures inspired by the white rabbit and regional kokeshi dolls that people could leave their own "Don't forget..." message on the back seam. We fine tuned the process of making them so even children could help.
We also designed and ordered custom t-shirts for the people who wanted to participate in the creation and installation of our collaborative site specific project at a nearby Onsen (hot spring) town.
Both of Fukushima's main newspapers published several stories about our project and we even got two TV features that document aspects of our project from being to end. I even got asked a question by one reporter!
The other assistant and I made and frequently posted on a Facebook event page. The first figure we made had very asymmetrical ears and was easy to spot out of the over 200 figures we ended up making with lots of help. We named this first funny looking one Q-chan and would post about his everyday doings.
