Meguru Measashi welcomes Shinya Ominami, chairman of the certified NPO Green Valley, who is a key figure in the development of the town of Kamiyama, as a guest. In the first part , Monosus representative Hayashi delves deeper into the spirit of "Just do it" in Kamiyama.
In the next part, we will ask Ominami about his new project and its aims.
(Interview: Kensaku Saguchi, Photography: Katsutaka Ikuzu)
Profile of Shinya Ominami :
Born in Kamiyama, Tokushima Prefecture in 1953. Graduated from Stanford Graduate School in the United States. After returning to his hometown, he practiced "resident-led town development" with his friends, and in 1996 began "creating an international artists' village." He launched a series of art projects, including the "Adopt Program," a road cleaning activity that was the first of its kind in the country, and the "Kamiyama Artist in Residence."
In 2004, he founded the nonprofit organization Green Valley and became its chairman. He supports relocation and business start-ups and promotes the establishment of satellite offices. He advocates "creative depopulation," which is a creative depopulation, and has promoted the creation of "Kamiyama of the World," a place where diverse people gather.
Even the latest things will inevitably become outdated after 10 years. But people transcend generations and will never become outdated.
It seems that Hayashi Tainan's generation expanded the boundaries and created freedom in the gaps, which helped the idea of "why not just do it" take root in Kamiyama, making it a comfortable place for immigrants.
With a view to passing on this system to the next generation, is there anything you are currently working on?
Ominami-san: Recently, I've started thinking about what direction Green Valley should take in the future. This has led me to reconsider what it is that has created the value of Green Valley.
I think it's because it has created an environment where people who come to Kamiyama from outside, people with creative ideas, stay, sometimes leave, and then come back with different work.
No matter what direction Green Valley goes in the future, I think that as long as we keep this system in mind, things will work out smoothly.
That's why I would like to once again carefully create a space where creative people can gather.
There are a lot of IT satellite offices here, and there's also an art community. I'd like to broaden that scope even further and create several locations in the natural surroundings of Kamiyama where people in the fields of architecture and design can gather.
Hayashi :I see.
Ominami: If we do that, new people will come in and the next project will be born in an atmosphere where people think, "Why not try it?" So, my next project is to create such a place.
Hayashi : I'm looking forward to it.
When asked what Ominami-san ultimately wants to make, he said it would be something like a "human juicer." When you put fruit in the juicer's container and spin it, juice comes out. Usually, that container is made of glass or transparent resin. So, instead of glass or resin, he wants to make a juicer with a container made of a person pasted onto a jigsaw puzzle.
Things always become outdated over time. Even the latest things get boring after 10 years. But what is the thing in the world that never goes out of date? I think it's human beings.
If you pass it down through the generations, it will never become stale. So, interesting people come into Kamiyama and become new pieces, which then combine with the original people to form a vessel. When someone leaves, the vacancy is filled with another person's piece. If this system is in place, a device that always produces the latest projects, a juicer, will be created. People with ideas can throw their interesting ideas into this juicer. Then, those ideas are mixed together in the juicer, and something that pops out becomes a new project. That's the image I have.
Hayashi
A jigsaw puzzle with constantly updating pieces.
Oonami
Right. It's actually a relatively easy setup, since players who join later can join right away.
To make something happen, you don't have to think, "Let's come up with a project!" If you have a place that connects people, the next project to aim for will pop up.
Hayashi : I want to create such a system at Monosus. However, I think there are many people, including myself, who are having trouble making the juicer. However, Kamiyama already has a system for that.
Why is this?
Oonami
This is not something I said myself, but something that 3D car modeler Tenshi Terada said, but what surprised me the most in Kamiyama was that, if you liken it to soccer, everything was connected by direct passes. And it wasn't by finding the other person and passing to them, it was just by passing to the zone.
When you have something you want to do, something you want to solve, something you want to try, just throw it out there and someone suitable will always appear, and that person will pass the ball to the next zone. And then, something that you can't do by yourself will come together in a flash.
In that way, Kamiyama is in a sense a place where all kinds of people gather together in a relaxed atmosphere. I think it's very important that such a zone has been created.
Hayashi
I see. How did that zone come about?
Oonami
Going back to the phrase "Why not just do it?", I think the atmosphere, mood and soil have been cultivated in a way that makes it easier for each person to take the first step. So, everyone can take the first step.
In fact, most things in the world take shape once you take a step forward. However, the smarter people are, the more they study before they can even get there. They read books, they study, they study, and in the end, they only see the risks, and they can't take a step forward.
Most of the time, you don't know what to do until you actually try it, but you just think about it and hesitate. However, in Kamiyama, someone is pushing you, saying "Why not just do it?" and the atmosphere, mood, and soil have been cultivated that make it easy to take a step forward. That's probably the value of Green Valley. In a way. It's something that has been built up over the last 20 years.
With a firm resolve, Kamiyama is where you can encounter creations beyond your imagination.
Ominami: Going forward, I think Green Valley will be an example for Hayashi and his team to apply to their own field and see how it works. I think it will be a matter of building it step by step.
I think that's probably what Silicon Valley is like. It's a zone where people think, "Why not just do it?" If you pitch a good idea to a certain place, funds will gather, someone will appear who can provide the necessary theory, and the business will grow. I think that a situation where players are not fixed and are loosely connected creates the best atmosphere, atmosphere, and soil for creating new projects.
Hayashi
To achieve this, it is important to say what may, in a sense, be irresponsible: "Why not just do it?"
Oonami
That's right. It's better to push them away a little. In the end, it won't work unless they're determined. Even if you help them and push them from the beginning, it's never going to work.
Helping someone means investing your time. If the person is unsteady and wavering, it will be hard on the people around them who have invested their time. So you need to be firm in your resolve, but conversely, if you have your own axis and can take a step forward, I think everyone in Kamiyama will help you.
Hayashi: I thought the nuance of pushing someone a little further away was really interesting.
Oonami
There's always a sense that you want to do it. It's not like I want to do it myself. So I look at it. I look at where the person stands and how they approach it. Will they invest time in it and turn it into something good? That's what I judge them on.
If pushing them away will make them fail, then the same thing will happen in a different situation someday. But if a child can grit their teeth and persevere when they're told, "Why not just do it?", they'll be able to persevere in other situations too. By pushing them away, you're looking at what kind of person they are.
Hayashi
People who start something new spend their own money and time, right? I wonder what the value of doing it in Kamiyama, where people are always willing to give you a helping hand while pushing you away and saying "Why don't you just do it?"
Oonami
I wonder what it's like... (laughs). I think it's probably something that happens beyond what you can imagine. Creation that exceeds your imagination. If you start something here, you might be able to create something that is different from the goal you set, something that is even different from what you imagined or expected.
Hayashi
People come together because they have that kind of expectation.
Oonami
In reality, that happens a lot.
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, research director at the Nikkei Research Institute, often comes to Kamiyama; he's originally from Tokushima and serves as a member of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Council for Cultural Affairs and as a member of the Tokyo Olympic Games cultural program bid committee.
Yoshimoto-san gave a keynote speech at an international symposium on art in Kamiyama. At that time, he said that Kamiyama is like "a game of sugoroku with no winning moves."
"I come back to Kamiyama almost every year. Normally in a game of sugoroku, you start from scratch, and as you roll the dice, you go back and forth, but in the end you always win. But it seems that in Kamiyama there is no win. Every time I come here something new happens. And things beyond my imagination, and I never know what's going to happen in the future. That's why I can't stop coming here," he said (laughing).
There is the possibility that something unexpected could happen, and you can see the possibility of becoming that player yourself. I think that's what attracts people to come.
While the company does work that will produce results in two or three years,
We need to invest in things we don't know
Hayashi
What kind of plan is your project, Oonami-san?
We will show you the location of the new project.
Ominami: My father built a wonderful house for us, but if we leave it like this, I think it will be a burden to my children. It's spacious, and Japanese architecture is hard to maintain. But even if I tell my children, "This is a precious house that Grandpa built for us, so you have to protect it," it will definitely be a burden.
So, what is the best way to protect this house without putting a burden on the residents? The answer is to make use of it. What if we create a base for architects, including foreigners, in the vacant lot in front of the house, open it up to the public, and make it a place where people can come and stay, eat, and even take care of the Japanese garden together?
It's not just architecture, but other buildings will be built and dotted with art and design. The start of this initiative is "My Project A." The A stands for architecture. We will put an architectural firm here as the core and create a co-working space. And we will operate it together with the architectural firm.
Otherwise, my children will be in trouble.
It would be a bit tiring to say, "Dad, you built something strange before you died." I think it would be good if we could use various things in a way that is as painless as possible.
HayashiFinally , please tell us your impressions of Monosus.
Oonami
In a word, it's a unique company. It's free. It has a wide range of possibilities. It's expansive. I think it has great potential and is a good place for various things to grow. However, just now, Mr. Hayashi said that it would be difficult to do the same thing as Green Valley at a company.
Hayashi
yes.
Oonami
I think that's certainly true. I was able to move around easily at Green Valley because it wasn't work. Because it wasn't work, I wasn't expected to produce results. There were no deadlines. I also had friends.
They travel together for a week or two, and when the veneer peels off, they show each other the real metal underneath, and they can be selfish. They know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and they have a common understanding that "you can't leave this to him" and "this is him." That's why things like the zone I mentioned earlier can develop.
But if you run a company, it's not like that. So I think it's impossible to reinterpret all of the business in the Green Valley style. However, as one direction of the company, while doing work that will produce results in two or three years, we need to run parallel with things that may or may not be a big hit, or that may not change no matter how much we invest.
I think it will be an investment in the future. When I went to Facebook three years ago, I was impressed that they had set up an analog research lab in the most prominent place on the first floor, where all employees could see the artists' work. I think that will probably create something for Facebook's future.
I think we need to find out what the future of Monosus is and invest in it properly. Instead, it might not work at all. But if we don't do my own project, I don't know if it's going to work. I think it's better to make it. I think the food hub is also an experiment.
Hayashi
It's quite a difficult experiment though (laughs).
Oonami
" Chef in Residence " is interesting. It's about accumulating data. If you interview each chef properly and collect the data, I think you can create something incredible. It has the potential to change the way agriculture is done in the mountainous areas of rural Japan. Really.
I have told Chef Hayashi that I would like him to leave behind some recipes that use ingredients from Kamiyama.
Ominami-san, you can create the latest version of Kamiyama flavor. International. Monosus is a company that can do that.
Hayashi
That's what I'm trying to do, but... I'm finding it to be surprisingly difficult.
But I thought that in time, people might no longer be expected to produce results in their work.
When that happens, how will we face our work? Working alone can be lonely, so I feel like I'm starting to wonder if that's what companies are for.
Dear Ominami-san,
I first visited Kamiyama Town in September 2012, the year after the earthquake.
It was the seventh year since the company was founded.
At the time, Monosus, which received a lot of work from the advertising industry, was hit hard by the earthquake.
It was also a time when I felt completely exhausted from trying to rebuild things.At that time, I heard that Ominami-san and his group had been working in Kamiyama for over 20 years.
I remember feeling ridiculous for feeling like I was at a dead end after only seven years at the company, and then I suddenly realized, "I can just keep quiet and work at it for 20 years," and it was like a light bulb went off before my eyes.When we started working in Kamiyama, we wondered, "Why Kamiyama?"
I am often asked this question, and while I give a reasonable answer,
In fact, there was no clear reason
I think it was just because we wanted to place ourselves near Oonami and the others.It's been six years since I started attending Kamiyama.
Now it's time to try and put into words why I was so drawn to Kamiyama.
I wanted to hear directly from Oonami-san, who is the root of this."It's so irresponsible to say, 'Why not just do it?'"
At the beginning of the interview, as soon as I heard these words, I thought, "That's right," and strangely, I agreed.
I somehow felt like I understood why I was attracted to Kamiyama.From there, we will hear the story of how Ominami arrived at these words.
I enjoyed listening to it.I think being "irresponsible" actually takes a lot of courage.
Plus, it's very warm.I think it is quite difficult to make the idea of "why not just do it" take root in an organization such as a company.
Still, it has an appeal that makes you think, "I want to try it."My first encounter with Ominami-san and Kamiyama was...
It has certainly changed the fate of us at Monosas.
As a company and as an individual,
As a resident, I hope to continue enjoying my time here in Kamiyama.Takahiro Hayashi
Monosus Site Team
How to create good blood circulation with members and other people involved? How can we deepen our relationships to do better work? While thinking about this, we introduce the people and work of Monosus. The secretariat has approximately five members. I love eating a lot.