Sean Rocha

The Japanese village alive with dolls

Across Japan, villages are dying: the population is aging rapidly, the young move to the cities and the countryside empties.  The trend lines are similar in many other countries but never in history has it happened on this scale or progressed as far.  In response, Ayano Tsukimi makes dolls.  She lives in Nagoro, a village of 37 people that was once home to ten times that number, and as her neighbors die she sews dolls in their likeness so that the village can remain alive.  The effect, at least to me, is not to create a rejuvenating vitality but, instead, to underscore the tremendous loneliness of rural life.

Credit: Fritz Schumann, via the Atlantic

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2014 at 10:21 am. It is filed under That is Genius and tagged with aging, East Asia, Japan, The Atlantic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.