In Mizushima, Kurashiki City, there is the Mizushima Regional Environmental Regeneration Foundation (commonly known as the Mizushima Foundation).
Established in March 2000, the Mizushima Foundation is an organization that serves as a hub for environmental conservation and community development in the Mizushima area.
Since 2021, it has been producing a booklet called “Mizushima Memories,” featuring facilities in the Mizushima area.
We spoke with Miho Hayashi, a creator of the booklet at the Mizushima Foundation, about her thoughts on “Mizushima Memories” and her hopes for its future.
The information presented here was current when the article was published in January 2023. Please note that it may differ from current information.
About Mizushima Memories
Mizushima Memories is published as part of a project titled “Collaborative Efforts to Achieve the SDGs in Industrial Complex Areas: Toward the Establishment of an Air Pollution Archives,” selected for the Japan Fund for Global Environment program of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency.
Copies are distributed at social education facilities such as art museums and museums in Kurashiki City, as well as at Mizushima Shinkin Bank branches.
As of January 2023, the following five editions are available:
- New Linden edition (November 2021)
- Korean School edition (February 2022)
- Mizushima Rinkai Railway edition (March 2022)
- Mizushima Kodomo Shokudo Misora edition (July 2022)
- Mizushima Gas edition (November 2022)
To produce Mizushima Memories, the first step is to hold an event called the Mizushima Community Cafe.
At the Mizushima Community Cafe, participants learn about the Mizushima area and discuss with one another what they find interesting, then compile the charms of Mizushima that emerge from those discussions into Mizushima Memories.
I once attended the Mizushima Community Cafe for the New Linden edition, held in August 2021. I remember it as an interesting event where I learned a side of the coffee shop I had never known before.
What Mizushima Memories contains
Mizushima Memories weaves together the history of the places and things it features, touching on their past, present, and future, making it an enjoyable read.
The “New Linden edition” covers the early days of New Linden, a coffee shop familiar to people in Mizushima.
The “Mizushima Rinkai Railway edition,” on the other hand, explores ideas about the future of transportation in Mizushima, developed through the Mizushima Community Cafe.
However, Mizushima Memories does not cover only the brighter parts of history.
It also addresses pollution, which had a major impact on people’s lives as the town developed.
Mizushima Memories also devotes about as much space to photographs as it does to text.
The photographs in the booklet include not only those taken at the Mizushima Community Cafe, but also images held by the Kurashiki City Historical Materials Preparation Office and photographs taken by individuals in the past, making the past and present of Mizushima easy to understand visually as well.
Interview with Miho Hayashi
How did “Mizushima Memories” come to be made?
Its creator, Miho Hayashi, told us more about it.
How it began
What inspired you to create Mizushima Memories?
Hayashi (surname only)
It began with the Pollution Archives Network Forum held at Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare in 2019.
After learning about pollution archives around Japan through the 2019 forum, people began to work toward creating an archive housed in a dedicated building in Mizushima.
Until then, the Mizushima Foundation had been visiting various places in the Mizushima area as sites for learning, based on the idea of a field museum, where the entire region serves as a museum.
To establish a pollution archive, I came to the Mizushima Foundation from Osaka, where I had been involved in running a pollution archive, and joined the effort to create one.
How is the creation of a pollution archive connected to Mizushima Memories?
Hayashi
Even when we speak of pollution in general, many different people are involved, including residents, businesses, and government, and learning about it requires a multifaceted perspective.
Also, pollution is often a subject that local people would rather not discuss, but if we are going to create a pollution archive, it has to be accepted by the local community.
For the archive to be accepted by the local community, we had to do something we had never done before.
That was to weave together the history of Mizushima.
I believe it is important not only to make different perspectives visible, but also to bring them together into a single story. That is why we create Mizushima Memories as an accessible read that local people can relate to.
We wanted Mizushima Memories not only to convey Mizushima’s history accurately, but also to show that it involves multiple perspectives.
Producing Mizushima Memories
How is Mizushima Memories structured?
Hayashi
Every edition follows the same structure, telling its story in the order of present, past, and future.
Starting with the present makes the structure immediately easy for readers to understand.
Another distinctive feature is that half of each booklet is devoted to photographs.
There certainly are a lot of photographs. Why devote half the pages to them?
Hayashi
We include many photographs in the hope that they will unlock people’s memories.
Looking at photographs brings back memories and gives people a chance to talk with one another.
When people pick it up, they can read it by connecting it with what they already know.
The conversation can grow from things like, “Our house used to be here,” or “I know about that, too,” and people can use Mizushima Memories to explain things to others in their own way.
Are there any particular ways you have refined the structure?
Hayashi
We try to weave topics related to pollution into the text.
If the whole booklet were about pollution from beginning to end, it would be a heavy subject for readers and would likely feel difficult to get through.
So we first feature local facilities and people active in Mizushima, then show how pollution and development are also involved. That way, I think readers can more easily engage with both the facilities and the pollution.
For example, at the community cafe for the “Mizushima Kodomo Shokudo Misora edition,” Inoue, who currently runs a children’s cafeteria in Mizushima, told us that her father had once supported children who developed asthma due to pollution.
It is more interesting to see how different topics are connected, rather than focusing only on development or only on pollution.
But I think it is fine if people simply enjoy it, even without knowing the creator’s intentions, so we try to make the content convey how interesting the Mizushima area is.
The future of Mizushima Memories
How will Mizushima Memories develop from here?
Hayashi
The Japan Fund for Global Environment project supporting the publication of Mizushima Memories runs for three years.
The COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to conduct interviews, so we ended up publishing only three editions in 2021. We plan to publish four editions a year through 2023.
As of 2022, because of issues such as photo rights, people can only see Mizushima Memories by picking up a distributed copy. But we hope to make digital copies available eventually.
There are still many places and things we want to feature.
Read Mizushima Memories
“Mizushima Memories,” filled with Ms. Hayashi’s thoughts and the hidden charms of Mizushima, is distributed at Mizushima Shiryo Koryukan Asagao Gallery (11-12 Mizushima Higashisakaemachi, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture), as well as at libraries and Community Centers in Kurashiki City, social education facilities in the Bikan Historical Area, and Mizushima Shinkin Bank branches.
The Mizushima Foundation also reportedly accepts requests for back issues and the latest edition by mail, with postage paid by the recipient.
If you come across it in Kurashiki, be sure to pick up a copy and experience the charm and interest of the Mizushima area.
Why not visit in person, get a feel for the atmosphere of Mizushima today, and discover charms that have yet to be found?
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