Mad Maps
community based project, audio recordings, postcards, Paradise AIR in Matsudo, Japan, 2014-2015
As part of the Paradise AIR artist-in-residence program based in Matsudo, Japan, a town located on the north-eastern suburbs of Tokyo, I explored local urban legends by photographing people, their homes, and public spaces. In order to document the place through different (utopian and dystopian) stories and fantasies I interviewed the residents of Matsudo and gained a deeper understanding of the Matsudo identity filtered through my lens as a “gaijin”, or outsider. All the desires, dreams, plans and gossip melted into one experience of mapping the memory of this particular place. I called it MadMaps, or maps of relationships.
After two months of constant research and field work, I combined all the pictures and stories told by residents into a series of postcards that I then shared with the local community to use as personal souvenirs that they could send out into the world.
photos by Aleksandra Wałaszek
photo courtesy of Hajime Katophoto courtesy of Hajime Kato