This project involves multiple artists visiting Kitaushima and responding to the village through different art works and media. The project starts from the premise that measuring and quantifying can only give us certain kinds of information and that quantitative approaches might be usefully supplemented by forms of investigation that involve the body, senses and experience. This approach could give us a more complete and living picture of places that are often characterized as "problems" but which in fact may hold solutions to many of our contemporary dilemmas. Guest speakers will reflect on similar projects in villages in Brazil, Norway and the UK. 

• Dr. Christine Greiner, Catholic University of Sao Paolo 

• Dr. Elisabeth Brun, Kristiania College, Oslo 

• Dr. Becca Voelcker, Goldsmith's University of London 

• Poetry by Yasuhiro Yotsumoto 

• Artist Talks by Mike Collier, Hazel Baron-Cooper, Atsuko Nakamura and Ana Genioli

This Symposium was organized by John Williams (Professor, DES, Sophia University) and funded by the Sophia Symposium Grant as well as the Institute of Comparative Culture Collaborative Research Unit Fund and the JSPS Scientific Research (C) Fund, 24K03565"Art, Environment and Sustainable Futures."