projects

NOMLABNomura Open Innovation LAB

Roadside Station Kadena 'Learning Exhibition Room' renewed

OPEN：
2023/04/10
CLIENT：
Kadena Town

The Roadside Station Kadena overlooks the Kadena Airfield, the largest US airbase in Far East Asia. This project was a renovation of the 'Learning Exhibition Room' on the third floor of the building, with the aim of enhancing it as a 'place for education for pacifism' for school excursion students and tourists, and a 'place for community learning' for local people and children.

 

The contents of the exhibition began with a prologue that told visitors that Kadena is a "base town" with 82% of the town area occupied by US military bases, and then moved on to the pre-war period when the town flourished as an economic, cultural and transport centre. It then went onto the Battle of Okinawa that marked the beginning of the formation of the Kadena base, the period of US military rule when the base was increasingly expanded, the post-reversion period when the base burden was continued, up to the present day. The exhibition traces the history of Kadena town in relation to the base from the reversion to Japan to the present day, asking the questions: 'Why is the base here? ' and 'Why can't the bases be eliminated?' The film is structured in such a way that the viewer is asked to consider these questions.

 

With the keyword, "There is a base in my town", the exhibition unravels the existence of the base from the perspective of "me" and "my family" who have lived side by side with the Kadena Air Base. The exhibition also features a video interview with people living in Kadena Town and a cartoon commentary featuring "me" and "my family". The exhibition also includes a display that allows visitors to experience the noise and smells of life in the base town, and an exhibition that places Kadena Air Base in their own town on a map to get a sense of the size of the military town.

 

Project members

 

Sales and project management / Satoru Arai

Planning / Eri Saito

Design / Yutaka Uehara, Yumi Ishii

Contents / NOMLAB: Aya Watanabe, Saki Miyahara

Product / Koichiro Takahashi, Yuki Saiki, Yasutomo Tanaka

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