Shinya Kobayashi (Representative Partner, Coelacanth Shokudo / MUJUN / Satoyama Install) - Connecting Satoyama Regeneration with Successor Development

Structural Challenges in Local Industries

What I feel while working on the successor problem in local industries is that the excessive rationalization through the division of labor has become a shackle everywhere. If just one material supplier in the production process quits, the entire process can collapse, leaving it on the verge of destruction. It is incredibly precarious. Local industries have been supported by the work of various artisans, but I honestly believe this industrial form itself is already nearing its end.

There are still some people who are the last survivors, continuing to create things while preserving techniques from an era before technology was rationalized after the modern period. They are already elderly, have no apprentices, and have never trained anyone. Now is the only time to learn from them, so we must hurry with successor development, or it will be too late. As an even bigger problem, since materials and raw materials cannot be obtained locally and must be bought from dealers, and demand has decreased, price hikes for each item occur frequently, leaving artisans in a weak position. This is a structural problem of the production area.

Circulation of Regional Economy in Europe

Since launching Coelacanth Shokudo (*1) eight years ago, I have been expanding cutlery brands overseas, and I have succeeded in gaining wide-ranging sales channels while setting prices completely different from the Japanese market. I believe I have learned what is necessary for manufacturing business and how to approach things overseas. The Japan that people overseas see is the image of the old Japan. They think that Shinto ideas still remain, and they come to exhibitions and sales events with a worldview that Japan is a country of artisans. They think it is a mysterious country where technology has developed, yet old things remain on the other hand, and everyone is very impressed when they see Japanese handiwork.

I feel that people in Europe have a high cultural standard of living, and the value of Japanese artisan technology is reaching them. As we have participated in exhibitions in Europe, we have learned that there are many places in regional Europe where the regional economy circulates within that area, even if the scale is small. Such small retail stores buy a lot of what we bring in consistently.

The Proximity Between Raw Materials and Artisans

In the past, even in Japan, there were immediate sales outlets even through wholesalers, and there were shopkeepers at those outlets who were knowledgeable about the products. Because the shopkeeper heard the needs of the users directly, that voice reached the artisans even through wholesalers. But now, products are lined up in large chain stores through even larger wholesalers from local wholesalers, so the voices of the users do not reach the artisans. Since artisans do not think about design, there is also a challenge in Japanese manufacturing where product design does not evolve. In Japan, the suggested retail price also comes first. It is common to have a retail price first, and then think about wholesale prices, but in Europe, it is the opposite. How much it can be sold for wholesale comes first, and then they think about how much it can be sold for in their own store. That is why prices are different even in the same town, and customers buy at their favorite stores even if the price is high. There are various reasons, such as close relationships in daily life or the store's good maintenance, but I think there is a big difference there from the current situation in Japan.

Sustainability has finally started to be talked about in the world recently, but I feel that most people do not realize that the manufacturing situation that forms its foundation and the environment surrounding manufacturing are precarious. With this sense of crisis, every time I visited Yunotsu in Shimane, I was surprised that life here is physically close to nature, and the distance between raw materials and artisans is not far. In fact, the artisans have the raw materials themselves, digging them up next door and making crafts in the workshop here. I thought, 'This is it!' And everyone is kind and has room to spare. When I ask a mortar maker for clay, they say, 'I'll give it to you, I'll give it to you.' They say they don't even need payment. 'Because I dug this up over there,' they say.

Regional Problems Can Only Be Solved by 'Living'

I have wanted to do something that connects satoyama regeneration and successor development for a long time. Just then, COVID-19 came, and I keenly felt the danger of continuing to rely on logistics for materials and fuel. I feel that now is the only time to give shape to the vision I have been thinking about. It is to create a system where raw materials that support local industries can be procured within the region, and to train successors in that land. Since the production volume of the industry will decrease, we will increase the added value by creating a context where everything is locally produced.

What I am struggling with the most right now is that, in the end, I think regional problems can only be solved by 'living' there. Even if I think that the region or society should be like this, nothing will change just by that, right? Since I started with the job of a designer, I know firsthand that 'people of the wind'—those who know various regions and carry things and connections between people—are important. But now there are so many people of the wind. There are clearly too few people who 'live' there. I realize that unless the number of people who 'live' there increases, I cannot protect what I want to protect. It has been two years since I started living in Yunotsu for half the month and in Hyogo for the other half, but even so, I still lack the feeling that I am living here. Even to reclaim the satoyama, it can absolutely only be reclaimed by living there. I believe that by starting to live there, I will become part of the region and the natural environment as a life itself, and only then will what I truly want to do be realized.