Events

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From YATO Broadcasting: Looking back on YATO 2020

Genre:
  • Art Project ,
  • Others

2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, was also a year in which YATO explored new practices and approaches including online options in response to the social circumstances. We are holding an online talk in which we think about YATO going forward through dialogue with YATO project members on topics such as the conversations they had during the year, and their current ideas and thoughts.

*COVID-19 infection control measures are being implemented under a safe and secure management system.

Live streaming

Please view on YATO’s official YouTube channel.

Contents

・The charm of the “delivery” shadow puppetry workshop
・The outcome of “preserving” individuals’ stories by listening to and recording them in writing
・Things that have become apparent from the operation of this project
・Stories behind the making of guide maps to local plant life
・Broadcasts from a casual YATO mountain walk
・First showing of a video of YATO Summer Fair 2020 shot on 16mm film!

*Program details are subject to change.

Admission

Free
*Viewers responsible for internet costs

A prelude to the online talk

In 2020 the year of the coronavirus pandemic, in common with many other projects and activities YATO too was suspended for a while under the circumstances, and organizers were forced to think about approaches to activities, and the project’s origins.
In the first regular meeting of project members during the pandemic in April, director Koryo Saito posed the following question.

“Where is YATO Summer Fair heading?” The YATO project is rooted in the premise of “500 years of common” with the goal of a “festival lasting 500 years” at its core, but if festivals were originally an offering to the gods, what do we at YATO hold as sacred?

In the discussion that followed on from this question, it seemed that core members’ feelings ran along the same lines; that we had managed to go ahead with this year’s initiatives without going off course and keeping the core of our activities in sight.

In switching to online implementation of the Summer Fair and the shadow puppetry event, we fulfilled our minimum aims but in fact were left with a positive feeling at the unexpected scale and potential for new initiatives shown by these events, which were only possible because we had taken them online.

In an activity for recording verbal accounts in writing, not taking our focus away from everyday life and work meant we were able to experience under extraordinary circumstances the subtleties and thoughts involved in universal human emotions transcending age, gender, and even community.

For the streaming of workshops and events, we went through a process of trial and error as we struggled with how to communicate things that would be easy to share if participants were physically present. This turned out to be a valuable experience, and we feel it strengthened basic skills to link to activities aimed at the next 500 years.

Of course, among our activities were those we had no choice but to cancel. A workshop to experience nature in a “satoyama” environment (undeveloped woodland near a built-up area) during logging had to be canceled when the season suitable for logging overlapped with the period when the state of emergency was declared. There is an immediacy to being able to smell the forest aroma, feeling and hearing the thud as a tree falls, feeling the very impact in your hands. The problem remained of how in future we can assure an activity like this, which is not interchangeable with an online version. Also, with movement between communities/districts restricted, it was once again an opportunity to feel appreciation and gratitude for the existence of project members who usually come from all over to take part in experiments here in Tadao.

Finally, I sometimes recall and ruminate on something a member said during the February meeting. When the tree logging workshop was cancelled, the member said that even if it was ultimately canceled, it was better to feel dissatisfaction, doubt, and regret in the lead-up. We will even learn to live with situations like these. It is important to look beyond the idea of not being able to do something and instead find ways to do it, but still it is etched on my mind that returning to our core concept like the project director said in April is an approach that we must not forget going forward.

This online talk will only represent a tiny portion of what was discussed during the year. However, we hope it provides the opportunity to get a real sense of YATO activities through the words of the project members themselves.

Contact

Project YATO Office
E-mail:info@yato500.net

Venues

Online