Tanja Severikangas
Projects
TakiTonttu
When I was working in Izumo, I lived in a rural seaside town called Taki. It merged with Izumo some years back.
I really liked the atmosphere of the town and got to know many wonderful people. In my final year of JET (2021), I participated in a local development committee in which we were thinking of ways to enliven the Taki town for both locals and tourists.
Taki town started a collaboration with Finnish town of Kalajoki over 20 years ago, and they have a log cottage holiday village overlooking the sea.
Since the holiday village is built with Finnish timber, I introduced an idea about the Finnish house elves, kotitonttu, which are believed to enter your dwelling with the wood you built it from. Hence, there must be tonttu living in Taki.
It lead to a community art project, in which the tonttu from Finland are interacting in Taki with the Japanese mythological creatures and spirits, as well as locals.
12 Days to Christmas
This project was done during 2021 in collaboration with my CIR colleagues in Izumo and the local Finnish Association. The goal was to create a multilingual book to start conversations about different cultures with children.
I wrote the story first in Finnish, then in English and Japanese. The Finnish Association checked and fixed the Japanese, my American colleague Jill checked the English. Furthermore the text was translated to Portuguese(BR) by Camila, and French by Lucie.
Collaboration:
Izumo Finnish Association
Jillian Adams
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillian-adams-00a7966b/
Camila Iquiene
https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilaiquiene/
Lucie Bourgeois
We had local collaboration course in which we split into teams of five. Each team had a different approach, and I was in the product design team. We used local materials from Tokuji and made different products with inspiration from the area. Collaboration with Youko Asada, Kensho Kitaguchi and Yoshina Takenaga
We had a presentation to people from Tokuji and the Uni. about our ideas.
A local entrepreneur who owns several gas stations. This used to be his garage/local gas station, but he had to change his business in order to provide for his family. He wants finnish fairytale creatures to inhabit the mountains around Tokuji.
We had local collaboration course in which we split into teams of five. Each team had a different approach, and I was in the product design team. We used local materials from Tokuji and made different products with inspiration from the area. Collaboration with Youko Asada, Kensho Kitaguchi and Yoshina Takenaga
Tokuji Town Making
There is a small town near Yamaguchi called Tokuji. In this town, they are doing a thing called machitsukuri which means literally town making. As many towns near bigger city areas, the town is losing services and businesses. The Tokuji town folk have joined forces with the Yamaguchi Prefectural University to protect the local resources. I've had many chances to collaborate with cultural events in Tokuji. I did murals for an un-used gas-station area. I taught local people himmeli-making. We arranged a summer festival painting workshop for kids(and adults, too) and I designed calling cards and image for their town arts and cratfs centre.