Higashi-Kujo Madang— photography
- “I can’t say I hate them, but you know those places that are only souvenir shops (miyage noya san) mainly for the school excursion [trade]? Their only meaning is sightseeing. People come from schools in groups and buy souvenir trinkets.I don’t even consider walking in those places.
...I don’t go to the festivals [in Kyoto]. Just once to Gion Matsuri, I came when I was a college student in Kobe.
....since [Higashi-kujo] is a place that nobody knows about, people here want to make lots of friends. Of course this is the place where I want to live.”
Higashi-kujo Madang organizer, Resident Korean.
My own contribution to the 2nd Higashi-kujo Madang was to coordinate a day-long photography shoot, which I called “Higashi-kujo no Ima.” The project grew out of my own frustration in acquiring information about the emotional attachments to place that local residents made or did not make to places in Kyoto. While I was constantly hearing about “Higashi-kujo” as a place, I was not having much luck finding out what locations, or what spatial attributes of Higashi-kujo gave it its “placeness.” What my interviews did show was a widespread disdain for Kyoto’s tourist locales and events, and a singular positive valuation on social life in Higashi-kujo.
“Higashi-kujo isn’t just a place,” one Madang organizer (a Japanese person living in a buraku area) said to me. “The name itself is a symbol of discrimination.” He wanted to be sure that the words “Higashi-kujo” stayed prominent in the Madang’s title. “Why is there no ‘Kujo-sushi’?” One person asked me. “Every other [numbered] street in Kyoto has a sushi bar [named for it], but not Kujo.” The picaresque quality of the neighborhood—its notorious outsider image—is played up in these conversations. But talking about and living in a neighborhood are not the same. I wanted to know where the emotionality that came out in their conversation found locations in the neighborhood.
- “You did a good job,” one of the Madang organizers says to me.
“It’s done!” I reply.
“It’s done, really.”
“The photos are all beautiful and interesting.” I say.
“I’m glad...”
The photo exhibit took up one side of the school yard. The next year there were two photo exhibits: one was a history of 50 years of Higashi-kujo, and the other was a tribute to Tabata Hideomi, a Madang “pioneer” who died the year before. This use of photography to document the locale increases the discursive availability of spatial features of Higashi-kujo for its residents.
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And so I devised a simple project: with a generous donation of twenty panorama cameras by the Pix Panorama Camera Corporation, I was able to supply cameras to individuals in the region.
- Tabata Hideomi was a Madang organizer who was also a quadriplegic. He was active in the Madang drama committee, and a member of the working committee. Every evening he returned to his room on an upper floor of the Matsunokimachi danchi (public housing) where a helper (or friends) would arrange his futon bed so that he could sleep for the night. He had no overnight help (there was no money for 24 hour care), and once in bed, he had no way of signaling anyone. His radio was set for a station that would sign on in the early morning, and he would wait until his day helper arrived. One night, very late, after drinking together, I helped to get him into bed. When another friend and I left, we turned out the lights and shut the door behind us. At that moment I sensed a bit of the terrifying isolation that Tabata-san must have felt every night. One morning, the year after I returned to California, his day helper arrived and found him dead. He died alone in his dark room. But he died surrounded by the thoughts and the memories of hundreds of people in Higashi-kujo. In this photo from his work in the Higashi-kujo no Ima project he showed how he prepared for sleep.
I distributed these through meetings of the Higashi-kujo Madang organizing committees, and also through the 40Banchi Kodomo no Kai (Children’s Club). The instructions I gave were simple: photograph what you like and do not like about the neighborhood, or what seems to be most representative of “Higashi-kujo,” of your everyday life. On one September day, more than 600 photographs were taken, and then 32 were chosen (by the photographers) to be exhibited at the Madang. (go to photo exhibit)
What emerged from this experiment was a clearer picture of the spatial topography of the district. The noted physical features of the area included its small lanes (roji) which were fondly remembered, and its many fences which were greatly abhorred. The lanes provide a safe environment (no cars) for children, and a shared space for adults to meet and converse.
The pre-teen photographer, a resident of 40banchi took this photo of the area because of all the fences. She hates the fences, she said. And they are everywhere.
A street shot in the evening in Higashi-kujo. Photos such as this display qualities of the area that inform the connections that the residents make to the neighborhood, and they are scenes that are not easily available to outsiders. Here a couple of friends are “hanging out.”
The content of the photos ranged from close-up shots of stuffed animals, to distant shots of the entire district. But most of them included people in places, in the street, in stores and restaurants, and in the housing blocks that dominate the neighborhood.
