MiSHŌ is an organisation that connects international creative practitioners to the vibrant community of Fujino town, located to the west of Tokyo.
Fujino (population of 8000 residents) is known as an art village and one of the Transition Movement towns in Japan. With history as an artists’ colony where artists evacuated during the Second World War, Fujino has been the site of several art projects and residencies since the 1990s.
It is a decentralized satoyama*, consisting of dozens of villages nestled in the valleys overlooked by the Tanzawa Mountains, surrounded by rich forests and streams.
Misho (実生) is named after a Japanese word for “seedling.”
Just as people have maintained the vitality of forests by improving the environment and taken care of satoyama as areas that sustain their daily lives, our project uses this word with the intention to cultivate the ground for co-creation where artists and local people can interact and spontaneously generate new ideas and creative solutions. By connecting these activities and the network of creative people to the world, we aim to make the area a global hub for the regeneration of natural and cultural ecosystems.
We envision MiSHŌ as a space that welcomes everyone for educational and cultural events, spontaneous happenings and organized community activities.
Our future hope is to develop an artist exchange program for local Fujino artists that will develop into wider ranging opportunities/ partnerships within Japan and with international artists and likeminded residencies.
