Fab Village Keihoku: An Experiment for the Vernacular as Site-specific Democracy

Fab Village Keihoku: An Experiment for the Vernacular as Site-specific Democracy

Fab Village Keihoku: An Experiment for the Vernacular as Site-specific Democracy

Fab Village Keihoku:
An Experiment for the Vernacular as Site-specific Democracy


Introduction
An old Chinese character for art and craft, “藝” comes from a pictograph that represents a person planting a sapling. This suggests that nurturing the forest and the art of crafting were one continuous practice in premodern East Asia. This continuity also indicates a mutual relationship between nature and culture, where the environment nurtures human endeavors of making, while the latter helps the former's regeneration.
Fab Village Keihoku (FVK) is a maker space and experimental site for reclaiming this mutuality as a vernacular and site-specific form of more-than-human democracy. FVK combines different skills and expertise, from Japanese craft (kōgei, “工藝”) and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) making to ethnography to explore the entanglements of the practice of making with the landscape, economy and infrastructures.
While the physical space of FVK is still only partially established, research and prototyping activities have already been conducted by a multidisciplinary team of artisans, designers, anthropologists, foresters, and artists from Perspective (a company dedicated to the regeneration of craft and forest ecology), Ethnography Lab at Osaka University, Sustainable Design Research Group at Kyoto Institute of Technology, and community members of Keihoku, a mountainous village in the north of Kyoto.

The two aspects of the vernacular
In this endeavor, the two aspects of the vernacular, understood both as the local or site-specificity, and as mundane and bodily experience, play the key role. On one hand, the vernacular as site-specificity denotes where crafting intersects with an idiosyncratic arrangement of ecological processes through the cultivating and harvesting of natural materials. This site-specific order has been almost lost by the rise of global logistics that move back and forth cargos and materials across the globe. On the other hand, the vernacular also represents the embodied experience of making as part of the everyday, an experience most of us have been deprived of through industrialization. By bridging these two aspects of the vernacular, FVK aims to nurture a kind of sensory imagination that connects the embodied experience of making things and the more-than-human world of the forest.
We approach the first aspect of the vernacular as site-specificity through the material flow of timber, the main material for woodcraft and architecture. FVK explores this flow from the forest to lumber mills and then on to the destinations of consumption by focusing on the intersection of ecological processes and human activities in a specific place, Keihoku (see supplementary photo 1). Located upstream of the Katsura river, Keihoku has served as a supply center of timber for Kyoto for nearly 1,300 years. Timber from the mountains of Keihoku was transported on small streams to the Katsura river and then convoys of rafts were formed to send the timber further downstream to the capital.
However, like the other forestry areas in Japan, Keihoku has been suffering from the falling price of timber for more than 30 years. The constant fall of the prices has resulted in the near collapse of the forestry industry and many overgrown trees are left unharvested in monocropped plantations. In the meantime, unsustainable consumption of cheap timber extracted from tropical forests in the Global South has kept expanding, led by demand in Japanese cities.
FVK explores possibilities of changing these unsustainable material flows. Keihoku, whose centrality in Japanese forestry makes the impact of the current unsustainability felt most acutely, is a suitable experimental site for the exploration of scenarios for such possible transformations. Currently, FVK has been conducting ethnographic research to delineate these problematic material flows and their environmental consequences. We will illustrate often unseen flows of timbers from the specific location of Keihoku and present it as an object of public debate and democratic deliberation.
Secondly, the site-specificity of Keihoku serves as an experimental setting to discern common goods for non-human stakeholders and thus extending democracy into a more-than-human world. Working together with foresters and loggers in Keihoku, FVK has been incorporating their local knowledge that sees a certain stability of the landscape as indicating the achievement of common goods for many forest species, from different species of trees and fungi to wild animals such as deers and boars.
In Keihoku's historical landscape, human intervention such as logging and thinning is an integral part of this stability. However, the current decline of forestry is threatening this stability and has already set in motion many negative environmental changes. FVK's prototyping effort aims to design and make wood products that use the kinds of timber that support sustainable forest management. Here our aim is not so much maintaining the status quo of the current cedar monocrop regime as it is facilitating a shift toward a new regime with an increased role of broadleaf species that allows the flourishing of many plant and animal species.
The other aspect of the vernacular that FVK aims to foster is the embodied experience of making. One thing lost in the advent of a society based on mass production is our experience and capacity to make and repair things. The technical skills for making and repairing things that used to be a part of everyday life are almost solely in the hands of experts. Like other maker initiatives, FVK aspires to regain this experience. Moreover, we see the mundane experience of making as an integral part of our version of vernacular and multispecies democracy stated above.
With the support from woodworkers and foresters from Keihoku and beyond, FVK provides non-expert participants rich sensory experience not only in making, such as the feel of the texture of different tree species in making wood products, but also in nurturing these trees that Perspective has planted. By doing so, FVK offers a wide-array of lay and professional participants opportunities to learn how the choice of material matters not only to the functionality of design but to the complex web of material flows that connects the workshop of FVK and the forest from which the timber comes from. Here, ethnographic depiction of the material flow of timber helps the two aspects of the vernacular, as embodied experience and as site-specificity, come together. FVK's ultimate goal is nurturing a kind of sensory imagination that is capable of connecting hands-on experience in making with its impact on the state of the forest through ethnographic knowing of the material flow.

Urushi: an embodied intersection of the two modes of the vernacular
In this dual endeavor to revitalize the vernacular, a particular plant species holds a key role: Urushi 漆 (Toxicodendron vernicifluum), shown in supplementary photo 2. Known in English as Japanese/Chinese Lacquer, the resin of urushi is used to coat the surface of wood products for waterproofing and decoration. Commonly used for bowls, plateware and in some cases buildings, the coffee color and sleek surface of urushi characterizes traditional wood crafts in East and Southeast Asia. Moreover, the use and cultivation of urushi is closely tied with the forest ecology and agricultural practices (particularly ecological disturbance by swidden agriculture or by secondary forest management) of these regions' broadleaf temperate forests. In this sense urushi epitomizes the affinity between the art of crafting and forest biodiversity, the central issue for FVK.
Urushi is indeed an ideal entry point for revitalizing the two modes of the vernacular. For one thing, urushi, whose usage in the region stretches back to ten thousand years ago, is a precursor of bioplastics, one of the hopeful technologies of our time to decarbonize the economy and to fight climate change. Urushi coating makes the surface of the wood waterproof, smooth and harder. Thus, urushi has long been served for many purposes that plastics do now. However, urushi's history marks a stark contrast with that of modern bioplastics. While modern bioplastics such as camphor are typically a product of global extractivism that resulted in the massive dispossession of indigenous peoples in the Global South, urushi production has never scaled and still remains as a cottage industry. In this sense urushi is a vernacular and sustainable material in contrast to plastics as global ones. However, unable to compete with cheaper plastics, urushi has constantly lost its foothold not only in the market but also in everyday use. Once common urushi bowls have now become luxury items and the urushi production has been in steady decline to the point where the urushi industry is at the risk of collapse.
FVK sees urushi as an ideal material to connect the two forms of the vernacular. As a traditional coating paint, urushi is essential for fully circular woodwork that can potentially replace plastic. Also urushi is an indicator species of the secondary forest with rich biodiversity created by appropriate human intervention. Thus, local production and consumption of urushi is a key to achieving vernacular and multispecies democracy FVK envitions.
In the meantime, the touch of the sleek surface of urushi evokes and cultivates embodied sensoriality, the second mode of the vernacular. Through experiencing varnishing with urushi, one learns how the touch of the finished urushi surface relates with the meticulous act of making. At the same time, FVK aims to connect this sensory experience with the actual care of the urushi trees that Perspective has planted. Seedlings of urushi (supplementary photo 2) require meticulous care that in turn nurtures embodied knowledge of all sorts of lifeforms, soils and water flows in the forest. By combining the two, FVK aims to nurture sensory imagination about the relationship between the act of making and the multispecies world of the forest.

The Urushi Surfboard
One of FVK's prototypes for this is an organic surfboard made of a board of cedar timber coated with urushi (the main photo). The surfboard was conceived by the urushi refiner and artisan Takuya Tsusumi, who is also a co-founder of Perspective. The surfboard was launched in the project with Tom Wegener, a well known Australian surfboard maker, and is now under preparation for commercial production. The solid and low-friction surface of urushi allows the board to slide on the wave smoothly and swiftly. As an increasing number of surfers became concerned about possibly devastating effects of plastic surfboards on marine ecosystems, the urushi surfboard has attracted much attention from surfers and media as a genuinely sustainable alternative to the plastic ones.
Moreover, from FVK's perspective, the board itself serves as a medium of sensory imagination. The urushi surfboard is an evocative artifact that alludes to the ecological cycles and material flows that connect the sea and the forest. The texture of the urushi surface communicates the warmth of wood on the wave, thus evoking a sense of relatedness with the forest even when one is staying far away from it. This induces the surfer to think of the unseen link between the sea and the forest that might be mediated by the material flow of timber, or water flows from the forest to the sea, through the watershed inhabited by many species including humans.
We see this sensibility as essential to realizing a site-specific and more-than-human mode of democracy. Returning to where we began this text, the old Chinese character “藝” itself can be seen as an evocative design that has led us to imagine unseen flows and relations that connect the act of making and the multispecies world of the forest. Combining crafting, design and ethnography, FVK explores this connectivity and nurtures a sensory imagination for our fundamental dependency on other life forms and site-specific ecological processes. In this exploratory endeavor, FVK itself becomes a prototype for a more-than-human form of democracy that is essential for the regeneration of this damaged planet.

(Text by Sachiko Matsuyama and Atsuro Morita)

Fab Village Keihoku: Specifications

Overview
Fab Village Keihoku is an experimental project collaboratively carried out by Perspective, the Ethnography Lab at Osaka University, and the Sustainability Design Group at Kyoto Institute of Technology. The three partners are preparing to launch FVK as a maker space in early 2022. FVK is closely tied with the Craft of Forest, Perspective's project for regeneration of Japanese craft (kōgei, “工藝”) and the forest.
Currently, FVK's physical space consists of a workshop for surfboard making (under construction by DIY) and a working space in Perspective's office, a 120 year old traditional farmhouse, both located in Keihoku. The building of the workshop is a former warehouse attached to the farmhouse.
Although the physical space of FVK is limited and under construction, FVK as a collaborative project has been carried out for nearly two years. The major subprojects of FVK consist of:

Ethnographic material flow research to illustrate the material flow of timber from Keihoku to Kyoto City and beyond
An experimental education project on critical making that combines ethnography, design and digital fabrication with students from Osaka University and Kyoto Institute of Technology

FVK has also incorporated the urushi surfboard project conducted by Perspective. By doing so, FVK has integrated innovative crafting of urushi surfboards with ethnography and design experiments.
FVK is mainly funded by Toyota Foundation Grant "Fab Village Keihoku: Forest-based Community for Collaborative Crafting" (Rep. Sachiko Matsuyama) and its research and educational activities are funded by Osaka University and the Toyota Foundation Research Project, ​​"Climate Crisis and Grassroots Infrastructures: Experiments in Economic and Technological Localization and Pursuit of Autonomy" (P.I. Atsuro Morita). In terms of facilities and equipment it received support from Kyoto Design Lab at Kyoto Institute of Technology.
FVK's coordinator organization Perspective is founded in 2019 by Sachiko Matsuyama and Takuya Tsusumi as a non profit corporation (一般社団法人) to revitalize craft industry and forestry. The office of Perspective is located in Keihoku.

Members
The core members of FVK are:
Sashiko Matsuyama (Craft Culture Coordinator), Co-representative, Perpsective
Atsuro Morita (Anthropologist, PhD), Professor of Science, Technology and Culture and Director of Ethnography Lab, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University
Tadashi Koike (Designer), Trustee, Perspective
Takuya Tsusumi (Urushi Refiner and Artisan), Co-representative, Perspective and Executive Managing Director, Tutsumi Asakichi Urushi Corporation
Kazutoshi Tsuda (Engineer, PhD), Junior Associate Professor, Sustainable Design Research Group, Kyoto Institute of Technology
The research and design team of FVK includes graduate and undergraduate anthropology students from Osaka University and design students from Kyoto Institute of Technology.

Location
FVK's main site is Keihoku, a mountainous village north of Kyoto. Keihoku was formerly a rural municipality until 2005 and is now a part of Ukyo Ward of Kyoto City. Keihoku consists of six communities and all of them mainly engage in forestry.

Facility
In collaboration with Kyoto Design Lab, FVK uses the digital fabrication facilities of Kyoto Design Factory. In Keihoku, FVK collaborates with Yoshida Woodworks and Hyodo Woodworks and uses their facility.

Collaborators
FVK also functions as a platform for collaboration between the three organizations and stakeholders in Keihoku and in the woodcraft industry in Kyoto, including Keihoku Forestry Cooperative, Yoshida Woodworks, Hokusō Timber Center and Tsutsumi Asakichi Urushi Cooperation.

https://www.japancraft21.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lTRPs65Ezo

https://www.forest-of-craft.jp/en/top