Map of Teruya V.1
Sketches of Teruya (Jan ~ Mar 2020)
The “Sketches of Teruya” Exhibit (January ~ March 2020 introduced a new map of Teruya, a district which thrived economically in the 50s and 60s during which thriving economic district that developed in the aftermath of WWII in the initial stages of American military occupation on Okinawa.
Exhibits (Artchive)
Sketches of Teruya Exhibition (2020)
The “Sketches of Teruya” Exhibit, held from January to March 2020, introduced a new map of Teruya, a district that flourished economically during the 1950s and 1960s. This vibrant area developed in the aftermath of World War II and during the initial stages of American military occupation in Okinawa. Teruya was composed of three distinct economic zones: the shopping district of Honmachi Dori, the market district of Koza Ichiba, and the entertainment district known as the Black District, which operated from 1952 to 1976.
During this time, a diverse community emerged, including Okinawans, African Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans, and other ethnic groups. Together, they contributed to a bustling economy against the backdrop of US military presence.
The map on display, including "MiXtory" (a blend of history, story, and mystery), is accompanied by photos and text that capture the vibrancy and potential of Teruya. It serves as a performative object that encourages viewers to engage emotionally, prompting them to fill in the gaps of what is missing on the map and to translate their personal MiXtory into tangible forms, such as objects, events, and performances.
The map, along with its revisions, represents a living archive of the places significant to those who lived, worked, walked, talked, and played in Teruya. The importance of the map lies in the process of its creation, spurred by overwhelming responses to an earlier version that contained many gaps. These responses encouraged individuals to identify the locations of stores and share stories from their childhood or adulthood, resulting in the creation of this new map. It serves as the first of many iterations as people continue to explore and reminisce about the MiXtory of Teruya.
Seamstress Exhibit
The Seamstress Exhibit is a first series of Gender and Women Series Exhibit showcased in March 2019, which was a mini exhibit within the main exhibit, Sketches of Teruya. The Seamstress Exhibit profiled five women worked as seamstresses during the occupation era. The idea of the exhibit started with the daily conversations I had with the woman who worked next door, making tempura and Okinawan traditional bento boxes based on the lunar calendar. One day, she informed me that she used to sew at home because her husband did not want her working while raising children, but did promise after the last child gets into grade school, she could work. She waited patiently while doing work at home sewing for various company orders, one of which was to make Rika-chan doll clothes, mainly sewing buttons and hooks for the dress. Intrigued by her story, I started to ask questions to neighbors who are women about the kind of work they had done. Surprisingly, almost everyone has done some type of sewing and I was introduced to the owner who owned the most well-known sewing shop in Teruya, which led to series of interviews of the woman who still lives in Teruya. Read her memoir, which she wrote for her children and grandchildren, I took notes of her experiences owning the tailor shop in Teruya that serviced mainly the black men who bought clothes, especially one-piece tailormade dresses that she and her staff made for their American or Okinawan wives or girlfriends. Like many, the shop made huge profit not only while the soldiers were still stationed on Okinawa, but also when they left through the mail. There are five women profiled in the exhibit with various experiences that differ in their trajectory, but somewhere cross into each other’s stories in creating a highway-like feel of how the stories, the women, and the items (dresses) travel and circle the Trans-Pacific ocean from Okinawa to America and back-and-forth. For example, the photo of four one-piece dresses as part of the exhibit was the actual dresses that an Okinawan woman who now lives in the States owns as part of her collection of Okinawan goods. The tag in the back of the dresses is hand-sewn the name Alice Tailor-made in Koza, matching the name of the shop found the map, but written in Japanese. These dresses, tailored made in Okinawa by Okinawan women for American soldiers who took to the States and subsequently, the wearers sold or gave away the clothes that now circulate through a unique market that may travel back to Okinawa. History could be mapped not only through people, but also objects. The significance of this story is not in finding the location but in the circulation of these and other items that travel across the world, especially between the US and Okinawa through another economy of recycled and vintage market.
Sketches of Teruya Ar(t)chive (2021, 2022) http://afrosoutheastasia.com/
Functioning as both artwork and archive, Ikehara’s maps are a form of “miXtory,” a term she uses to describe her methodology of weaving together the meta-narratives of history, personal stories, and the gaps or questions that emerge between history and memory. Ikehara describes this interplay in the map as performative, referring to the map as “an object that solicits the viewer into action [by] filling the gap of what is missing on the map, and translating the personal miXtory into material forms, i.e., [turning] object, event, performance into an archive.” Teruya represented three economic zones, which were active for more than twenty-three years after the American occupation from 1952 to 1976: Honmachi Dori, a shopping district; Koza Ichiba, a market district; and the Black District, a bar and entertainment district. The latter district served African-American soldiers in the military. During this time, Teruya's mixed racial, ethnic, cultural, language, and national geography also included people who were Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italians, Indians, Koreans, Filipinos, and the children of mixed-racial ethnicities. Postwar economic opportunities offered to foreigners in constructing the American military bases and other business ventures drew a diverse range of people to Teruya. Through their will to survive and thrive, they created what Ikehara describes as a postwar economic miracle. They created, in her words, “a community in which everyone had a chance of making, creating and imagining how to live in the company of others while negotiating difference.” Ikehara grew up in Teruya and some of the locations on the map are based on her memories, interviews, and what she calls yuntakuviews (yuntaku translates to “chatting” in Okinawan).
Stitching Pieces of Herstory tells the MiXtory (2022) https://tasarimbienali.iksv.org/en/journal/stitching-pieces-of-herstory-tells-the-mixtory
Istanbul Design Biennial 2021, Designing Resilience (Research Program) Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). Research Funding Award.
Remembrance Koza Uprising
A Sense of Place and Merchants` MiXtory (Feb. 2024)
**A Sense of Place and Merchants' MiXtory** is a project by Koza MiXtopia, conceived as a life/art performance—a platform for presenting ar(t)chives (archives as artwork) of Teruya MiXtory (history/story/mystery). This project was selected for the 2023 Okinawa Cultural Arts Creation and Promotion Support Project and held from February 17th to 24th, 2024, in Teruya District.
**Background:**
Teruya is a district of Okinawa City located in the central part of mainland Okinawa. During the US military occupation of the Okinawa Islands from 1945 to 1972, the city was known as Koza, a military town that featured various bars and entertainment districts. Teruya was historically referred to as the "Black District," a bar area that coexisted with the Honmachi Street Shopping District and the Koza Crossroads Market District.
Three main economic forces contributed to Teruya’s development, leading to the first postwar economic miracle, which lasted for 23 years. During this period, merchants and business owners amassed generational wealth by forming strong unions. The profits from this initial boom laid the foundation for a second wave of economic growth in the post-occupation period (1978 to the 1990s), merging the shopping and market districts into one merchant's union called Ginten-Gai. This powerful union brought wealth and independence to the area, spurring an economic renaissance in the 1980s. However, by the late 1990s, the economy began to decline sharply, with this trend continuing into the early 2000s. The steady closure of businesses and shortage of parking lots symbolizes the fading of past glories, including both the economic miracle and the subsequent renaissance.
Despite these changes, the past has not completely disappeared: some shops from the first boom are still in operation, coexisting with the second wave represented by the Ginten-Gai era and the emerging third wave of new ventures led by young entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs include both those who grew up in the neighborhood and newcomers from within and outside Okinawa. Some are the children and grandchildren of the original entrepreneurs who created the economic miracle and built generational wealth through land ownership of the buildings where these new ventures currently operate.
At this moment, Teruya's economic landscape embodies a continuity of past, present, and future, with overlapping economic time zones that may eventually fade as a new economic revival takes hold. This project aims to capture this extraordinary moment of overlap, highlighting the importance of local and global connections and how different worlds intersect through MiXtory: a new way of understanding and experiencing humanity in a broader context of pastness of history.
**Project:**
A Sense of Place and Merchants' MiXtory, a project by Koza MiXtopia, is conceived as a life/art performance—a stage for presenting ar(t)chives (archives as artwork) of Teruya MiXtory (history/story/mystery). The project was selected for the 2023 Okinawa Cultural Arts Creation and Promotion Support Project and held from February 17th to 24th, 2024, in the Ginten-Gai shopping area of Teruya District. The Ginten-Gai shopping area was transformed into an outdoor museum, allowing visitors to walk through different time zones while viewing exhibitions of ar(t)chives across various genres, displayed in the streets, alleys, walls, and the fronts or interiors of buildings.
Exhibitions included maps, data, and photographs presented on wheeled panels in the streets and alleyways at the sites of MiXtory. Additionally, found and acquired objects—such as registers used for transactions during the occupation, old hand-cranked record players, sewing machines, bamboo baskets, straw hats, dial phones, clothes, Japanese abacuses, and other items used in the stores—were displayed on the ground, on tables, and in front of buildings.
The installation featured a partial reconstruction of shops, streetscapes, and objects inspired by old photographs and based on yuntakuviews and interviews related to MiXtory.
A free guided tour included QR codes containing images, photos, sketches, texts, and audio clips from the voices of current and former merchants. These QR codes were placed in front of the locations where businesses operate, some of which have been in operation for 70 years. Visitors had the opportunity to walk at their leisure and experience a sense of place within this past-present continuum.