in this episode, we sit down with caroline mariko stucky, who is a swiss-japanese cinematographer and director from switzerland. she currently lives in new york. we had a conversation with her about growing up mixed in switzerland, the difficulties with being gay in japan, and how these experiences are expressed in her films– “color/blind” and “us”.
Read Morecaroline mariko stucky is a swiss-japanese cinematographer and director from switzerland. she currently lives in new york. we had a conversation with her about growing up mixed in switzerland, the difficulties with being gay in japan, and how these experiences are expressed in her films– “color/blind” and “us”.
Read Morecaroline’s personal work explores the various shifts and stages that constitute the movement towards empathy. as with any concept imbued with moral cachet, the temptation is to define empathy and then reflexively judge one’s personal experiences relative to this definition… like love, there’s something ineffably unconscious to the experience of empathy, that logic and language fail to capture, and eludes definition. as expressed in her work, caroline doesn’t seek to define concepts such as love or empathy; rather, through her exploration of complex relationships, her films challenge and complicate our understanding of what it means to empathize, and love.
Read Morein this episode we continue our conversation with @darthmitsuru who runs an english-school/coffee-roaster assemblage in west tokyo (@tokyocoffeejp). we talk about how identity in japanese society is centered around the concept of the 'wa', and how it leads to unintended and terrible consequences– like karoshi– which we discussed in the previous episode. following from our discussion on identity, davy shares what it was like growing up mixed in japan.
Read Morein this episode we have a conversation with davy millard who runs an english-school/coffee-roaster assemblage in west tokyo (@tokyocoffeejp). we discuss a problem deeply rooted within japanese society, and talk about new classifications for death that stem from japanese work culture. we also discuss how roguture is providing a response to the cycle of violence embedded within japanese work culture.
Read Moreon the face of it, roguture is ‘just’ a humble business venture that happens to teach english and roast coffee. but as i see it, roguture is so much more, and provides an example of what living free, mixed, and non-binary is like– free in spite of the pressures to conform that come from identity politics, mixed in understanding that who they are is a composite of multiple influences, and non-binary in that their actions are ethical and fluid, not moral and determined. roguture is an expression of life that thrives in spite of the negative affects of binary forces.
Read Moreif one disrupts, or is unable to incorporate oneself into the wa, it is tantamount to death. among the many things that are distorted by the wa, people’s concept of death seems the most affected. within a context where karoshi and kodukoshi are part of everyday reality, suicide seems almost trivial. but that’s the dark irony– death has become banal. and as a direct consequence of this, so has life. we’ve now ventured even further into the black hole.
Read More“there’s a japanese word called ‘wa’. no one wants to disrupt this wa regardless of if it’s in the family, in a community, at work, or anywhere else in japan. it means harmony, not status quo…wa technically is good thing, it has a positive connotation, but the way that it works is so bad. this concept of wa is inherent to japanese people because they’re raised in this culture. and they can’t function without it. it’s so against their nature to break that wa. if you break the wa then you’re probably worse than a foreigner, you become something other than japanese.”
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