Using the community to create an enjoyable life

In everyday life we tend to perceive “public” places and “private” places as being diametrically opposed. However, if we take public to mean a thing or place for everyone, you could think of something public as being something produced from the overlapping private aspects of the individual. Depending on how we perceive “public” and “private,” this can lead to hindering or conversely enhancing our life in the community and our individual behavior.

In this discussion we welcome as our guests mi-ri meter, an artist/architect unit which seeks to produce insights into urban impressions and public spaces by encouraging changes in the actions and perspectives of each individual in the community; and Kota Abe, who engages in creative activities in which he considers public nature using a cultural anthropology approach, questioning who communities belong to through fieldwork related to the grafiteiro graffiti artists of Brazil. We hear from our two guests regarding the practices and research they engage in as they bear in mind the relationship between the public and the private.

What is the boundary between the public and the private? And moreover, what sort of thinking and physicality is necessary for creating a comfortable sense of distance between public space and the self? We explore some pointers from the thinking and practices of our guests.