Area Studies Focusing on Kyoto Demachi

Fieldwork has been conducted focusing on new small-scale businesses in Demachi, northern Kyoto City, such as street vending and peddling by young people utilising long-established shops and vacant lots/houses. Whilst street vending and peddling have been regarded as disappearing practices in Japan, there has been a recent trend towards increasing new mobile vending using bicycles and light motor vehicles. This research examines how young people are integrating into the community, gaining support from long-established businesses and local residents, and carving out new workplaces. The findings were published in July 2025 by Seidosha.

The Art in Non-State Spaces

Many of the spaces in Kyoto's Demachi district are vacant lots, empty houses, or areas beneath eaves and in warehouses – domains previously regarded as externalities or unproductive spaces. Previous research has focused on such areas, re-evaluating their function as sites of social and cultural activity. These spaces, often described as declining, dying out, or pre-modern, and the small shops utilising them, have not perished. Future research will focus on the “art/crafts” that emerge precisely within these small domains, seeking to elucidate the mechanisms by which the accumulation of such art contributes to the generation of non-state spaces. Here, “crafts/art” refers to techniques, skills, and abilities – such as those in fine art, crafts, and manual work – encompassing the capacity, techniques, and skills involved in performing work.

“Regional Art” in Southeast Asia and Japan: As a Curator

I have been involved as a curator in art projects across Southeast Asia and in exhibitions at Japanese museums. Contemporary art and performing arts in the 2000s shifted from being exhibited and presented in museums and institutions to utilising unused spaces within the urban environment. Such instances demonstrate that the threshold and domain of contemporary “art” have diversified, forming an interdependent and complementary relationship with the city. Drawing on my curatorial experience, I aim to pursue an ethnography that bridges practical art and research.

Fieldwork with students at a bookstore in Kyoto Demachi