Exploring Shimokitazawa; Experience the City / Art
“Save the Shimokitazawa” / Tokyo

There are a lot of methods and tools to observe the city. For instance, you may observe people from a fixed point, or interview those people in the urban environment, or look at magazines and maps. What method can be used to adequately capture "Shimokitazawa"?

The redevelopment plan is now approaching Shimokitazawa. What does this plan mean for the town of Shimokitazawa ? The meaning, the problem or the possibility of the redevelopment plan is likely to become clear when we examine Shimokitazawa from various angles. To locate the redevelopment plan in the particular context of the city is the purpose of this workshop.

This is what we will do:

1. Observe Shimokitazawa thoroughly from various angles
2. Summarize it in a video work that introduces Shimokitazawa.

Those are the two main tasks of this workshop. We will finalize the specific approaches to these tasks through discussion in the workshop.

The participants will be asked to make one video work (of ten minutes) by cooperating as a team. It is expected to be a hard schedule since we need to do all work of filming and during the workshop period.

The completed work will be previewed in the documentary festival "Cinema Typhoon" at Cinema Artone on July 7(Sun).

Cinema Artone: http://www.cinekita.co.jp/
Cinema Typhoon: http://www.cultural-typhoon.org/cinema/

Also, the work aims to apply for "The 6th mAAN and international conference, Tokyo Japan " to be held in November.

mAAN 6th International Conference, Tokyo Japan"our modern -Re-appropriating Asia's Urban Heritage" 1-5/11, 2006
http://www.m-heritage.org/maan2006/

mAAN 2006 International Short Film Competition
http://www.m-heritage.org/maan2006/eng/05_session/session_02.html

At the end.

For participants who wants to experience the deeper angles of the city by communicating with shop owners, residents, artists, performers, and a lot of other people, this workshop is strongly recommended.