Sumiyoshi: Cities and the Sea
A short multimedia story inspired by the fishermen of a Japanese port village in the Seto Inland Sea, a place where city, sea, and forest are intertwined.
Patrick M. Lydon
Lydon is founder of City as Nature, and serves as the arts editor for The Nature of Cities (New York). He has written about urban ecology and art for Kyoto Journal, YES! Magazine, Routledge Press, and others. In 2019, he co-curated the Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Knowledge at Sorbonne University in Paris, and previously served a city-council-appointed role as Arts Commissioner for the City of San Jose (USA). His internationally exhibited artwork inspires empathic relationships between humans and nature, drawing on years of nomadic study with the farmer-philosophers of East Asia. He holds an MFA with distinction from the University of Edinburgh’s “Art, Space & Nature” program, with previous studies at Aichi University of Art, and California State University, San Jose. Together with his wife Suhee Kang, he co-directed the internationally-acclaimed film Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness, which has been translated into seven languages and continues to be screened around the world. He currently lives in Osaka, Japan, and tends to a natural urban garden with Suhee.
Cities, Trains, and Cultures in a Pandemic
A journey between Japan and Korea in these times, means government health checkpoints, special bullet trains, hazmat teams, and disinfectant baths. Through it all, different ways of viewing ourselves, our cities, and viruses, become clear.
Making a Natural ‘Pocket Park’ in Japan
With only a few weeks to work, we tried to turn vacant urban land into a pocket park that would make Masanobu Fukuoka and Patrick Geddes proud. Here is the short story of how it happened.
Lateral Lab: Ways of Thinking / Cultural Olympiad
During spring and summer 2020, The Branch worked in partnership with the Scottish cultural trust, Lateral
“Ways of Thinking” Cultural Olympiad Exhibitions
June 2–5 & 9–12: Celtic and Eastern cultural exchanges in this global era, offering a point of focus and a shared responsibility. Art that reminds us how we are all connected.
The Branch Pocket Farm
The pocket farm is a community herb garden, and a place to re-connect ourselves with nature amid the urban setting of Osaka. It is freely open to visitors.
We Had Forgotten We are Ecological Beings
In this time of slowness, natural farmers in Japan’s countryside remind us that everyone has the ability to listen to nature. But can city dwellers really learn?
Aya Shimamoto: Mezzotints / Play Indoors
For Aya, the work of making prints, spending time touching and observing objects and places, is also a way of touching and transferring these memories, and the sense of wonder they embody.
Osaka Festival 2019, Limited Edition Catalog
Printed sustainably in Japan, this beautiful little book features writings and artworks from our very first eco-arts festival.
Learning Natural Food: Story of a Young Taiwanese Farmer
City as Nature visits the countryside of Kaohsiung to talk with a young farmer about his choice to leave the city and start a natural chicken farm with his family in Taiwan.
The Mind, Farm, and Life of Masanobu Fukuoka – Larry Korn Interview Series
A three part interview film series by City as Nature, exploring the philosophy of natural farming, and how to apply it to life.
Shotengai: Shopping Streets and Bicycles
Explore an old Japanese neighborhood where few people would consider going to the market in a car. In Kagaya, bicycles and pedestrians rule the road.