BY KEVIN SAWYER – When Tsukimi Ayano, 67, decided to return to the small and isolated Japanese village of her birth and youth, she found it a sad and most depressing place. The artist found that many people had moved away, especially the young people, in search of jobs and a more prosperous life. Those that were left in the rural village of Nagoro were elderly with little time remaining in this particular lifetime.
Ayano comes out of her home to chat with “neighbors”.
Determined not to let her village die and be rendered into dust, she decided to replace those who have moved away, or died, with human sized dolls that resemble the exact person who used to live there. And now, her years of laboring for the love of her village has produced 350 human like dolls that now fill the village with color and fond memories. Her dolls, or scarecrows as she refers to them, now outnumber the residents that are left as only 30 live humans are left in her beloved Nagoro.
Ayano said that, “Ever since I started weaving the dolls, I am not alone anymore. Everyday someone comes to see me.”
The dolls just don’t sit and look like they are in an exhibit. They can be found “working” and “playing” or “studying” at school. They stand at the counter of the small store, sit in trees to look for traffic or sitting at the bus stop as if they were on an urgent mission to a far away city. They are even out in the road with shovels doing some repair work.
She has created dolls of her whole family as well as friends and family who have since passed away. Without really knowing it, she has also brought a spotlight onto the current Japanese problem of the rural areas of the country that are quickly becoming abandoned.
PHOTO CREDITS: Reuters