Monday 8 — Friday 19 February 2016

[61]

Exhibition of MSA work on Japan’s small urban spaces

Monday – Saturday: 10.00 – 16.30
Thursday: 10.00 – 19.00

This exhibition explores Miyakobashi Yokocho (Yokohama, Japan) in drawings, photographs and text. It reveals previously concealed glimpses into Japan’s changing urban culture.

Miyakobashi Yokocho is home to sixty-one lift-sized spaces: ‘sunakku’ (snack bars), frequented by business men, local residents and the occasional tourist alike. Constructed in 1964, just in time for Tokyo’s last Summer Olympics, Miyakobashi Shopping Centre transformed a formerly cluttered black market area into an orderly urban marketplace. Over several decades, courageous women created independent livelihoods for themselves in converting Miyakobashi into the vibrant entertainment block it is today.

The narratives of Miyakobashi clients and proprietors provide an intimate account of small-scale urban transitions and synchronous cultural and social change; they expose the difficulties (and successes) faced by contemporary Japanese women; and they put into perspective current efforts to redevelop this along with similar urban areas in view of Tokyo’s forthcoming Summer Olympics 2020.

The exhibition builds on research in Yokohama, Japan, and was funded by the Daiwa Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University.

More information at www.q.complexurban.com/61

Twitter: @61sunakku  @GrosvenorGall
Hashtag: #61

Opening Night
Monday, 8 February 2016
16.00 – 19.00