Mapping Tokyo Olympics 3.0: From the Olympic Games to Playful Rural Revitalization

Mapping Tokyo Olympics 3.0: From the Olympic Games to Playful Rural Revitalization

Sharon Hayashi - Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, York University

Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Room 106, Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures See map
143 Elm Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Mapping the politics of demolition and displacement exposes the physical effects of the Olympics on the urban landscape of Tokyo and the displacement of vulnerable and precarious persons. How can the Olympics be considered a cyclical ‘practice of subtraction,’ where the city is not only rebuilt but unbuilt?  Focusing on specific sites uncovers the intertwined layers of the urban development history of the 3 Tokyo Olympics and the imperial (1940), high-growth (1964) and post-growth (2020) periods they represent. An examination of local and international pressures being exerted on these spaces suggests ways that local contestations of power can be made visible and supported. How is land reclaimed and what do we learn from following the debris?


Sharon Hayashi is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Department of Cinema and Media Arts at York University, Toronto. Hayashi’s recent work has focused on visualizing and archiving spatial practices of artistic and social collectives in Tokyo. Her current research projects include the digital mapping archive project Mapping Tokyo Olympics 3.0: The Politics of Demolition and Displacement, and the collaborative gaming project Eco-tour: Currency, Community, and Sustainability in Rural Japan.

Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Region: 
Japan