Kazuko Ono, an independent folklore scholar and PUMPQUAKES

I Want to See, I Want to Hear, and That Is Why I Travel

Kazuko Ono
Price: 2,970 JPY (included tax)
Edited by Chinatsu Shimizu
Photographed by Lieko Shiga
Designed by Masakazu Onishi
Contributions by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Natsumi Seo, Lieko Shiga
Printed by Live Art Books, Inc
Printing direction by Yoshiyuki Kawamura, Chinatsu Shimizu
Published by PUMPQUAKES

Unforgettable Japanese: People Who Tell Folktales

Kazuko Ono
Price: 3,520 JPY (included tax)
Edited by Chinatsu Shimizu, Taku Sakurai
Cover and Illustrated by Sotaro Kikuchi
Bookbinding and designed by Masakazu Onishi
Printed by Live Art Books, Inc
Printing Direction by Yoshiyuki Kawamura, Chinatsu Shimizu
Published by PUMPQUAKES

The following event will be in conjunction with the exhibition “Kazuko Ono, an independent folklore scholar and PUMPQUAKES.”

The screening of the film “Storytellers (Utau Hito)”

Date: July, 27, Saturday *Two screenings are scheduled for the day.
Time: 14:00-16:00（doors open : 13：45）/ 16:30-18:30（doors open : 16：15）
Price: 1,000 JPY ( 40 people each time ) *Limited number of participants (Reservation required)

*For details on how to register for each event, please visit our website and SNS.

https://pumpquakes.info/post/ono-exhibition2024/
For more information, please check here↑

The film “Storytellers (Utau Hito)”

Storytellers (Utau Hito)” is the third part of a trilogy focusing on the Tohoku region that is comprised of dialogues with victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake, following the previous films “The Sound of Waves (Nami No Oto)” and “Voices from the Waves (Nami No Koe) directed by Ko Sakai and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. In response to the challenge of handing down the disaster experience 100 years into the future in the previous two films, this story has been inspired its suggestion by the storytellers of traditional Tohoku folklore.The film recorded narratives of traditional tales told by Reiko Sato from Kurihara City, Miyagi Prefecture, Masako Ito from Tome City, and Ken Sasaki from Rifu City meet Kazuko Ono of the Miyagi Folktales Association (Miyagi Minwa No Kai) as a listener. The camera captured and represented on the screen the situations of the unique atmosphere of traditional folklore “Storytelling / Listening” encountered between the storytellers and listener through creative camerawork. The voices of the ancestors are brought back to life on the screen through the storytelling with the lives of people behind the scenes. A new kind of folklore film that transcends the boundaries of cinema and folktales.

2013/120minutes/Japan
Production company：silent voice LLP
Release date：November, 9, 2013
Directed by Ko Sakai / Ryusuke Hamaguchi

(Photograph：Takeshi Abe)

Kazuko Ono

She was born in Gifu prefecture in 1934 and lives in Miyagi prefecture. Since 1969, she has been visiting villages in Tohoku, mainly in Miyagi Prefecture, to pursue and compile folktales while translating juvenile literature and authoring children’s books. In 1975, she founded the “Miyagi Folktales Association” and served as its representative until 2005 and currently works as its advisor. 1995 received the “Miyagi Children’s Culture Otentosan Award” and in 2013 the “Miyagi Prefecture Art Encouragement Prize.” Her book, I Want to See, I Want to Hear, and That Is Why I Travel (PUMPQUAKES / 2019) won “the 7th Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize” in 2020 and “the 10th Umesao Tadao Mountain and Exploration Literature Prize” in 2021. Her other major edited works include Choja Harano Babasano Mukashi (Hyoronsha / 1992) and Michinoku Minwa Mandara: Minwa no na ka no Onna-tachi (1998/ Hokutosha). She supervised the first to the 15th study series books, the folklore of Miyagi.

PUMPQUAKES

PUMPQUAKES is a gathering group of independent individuals consisting of Chinatsu Shimizu (cultural worker), Yoshitomo Nagasaki (apprentice of agriculture/film technician), and Sotaro Kikuchi (painter) based in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. They create a space for learning and expression, production, editing, publication, curation, and so on, and sometimes collaborate in their output.
The name of the collective, “PUMPQUAKES” is a coined word combining “PUMP (heart, circulatory system, beating)” and “QUAKES (vibration). The three met in the wake of the March 11, 2011 Great Eastern Earthquake, brought their activities together, learned from each other, and aimed to transform them into a new vibration.

Lieko Shiga

She is a Japanese photographer, born in 1980 in Aichi Prefecture, and lives in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, she graduated with a BA in Fine Art New Media from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, institute in 2004. In 2008, she moved to Miyagi Prefecture, the concepts of her creativity while meeting the local people who live there, the relationship between human society and nature, thoughtful about life from the imagination of death, and memories that go back many generations. Also, in 2011, after being overwhelmed experience by subsequent “reconstructions” of the devastation and the loss of social functions in the coastal areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake, she has been pursuing interactions of the roots of the human spirit and its impact on society, using photography and video media production as a foundation for her work. Major exhibitions include “RASENKAIDAN” (Sendai Mediatheque / 2012), “Human Spring” (Tokyo Photograph Art Museum / 2019), and “Waiting for the Wind” (Museum Of Contemporary Art Tokyo / 2023), etc.

Sotaro Kikuchi

He is a Japanese painter, born in 1993 in Iwate Prefecture, and lives in Miyagi Prefecture. He graduated from Tohoku University with an architecture course in the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2019. He creates paintings and installations using architectural materials and images mainly based on recall from the landscape of run-down areas. He is also active as a member of Kenchiku-Downers, a unit that designs fixtures and space plans, and PUMPQUAKES, a collective that collaborates on editing and curations. Recent major solo exhibitions include “Good Landing” (Gallery TURNAROUND / 2022), and primary group exhibitions include “Voyage: Practicing Landscape” (Shiogama Sugimura Jun Museum of Art / 2011), “Restorations of Narrative” (Sendai Mediatheque / 2021), “VOCA: The Visions of Contemporary Art 2023” (The Ueno Royal Museum / 2023), etc.