Garden with Foreign Species for Depopulated Island: Case Inujima; inventive landscaping design as a tool to transform population dynamic.

In 2010, Inujima was an island with 47 inhabitants with average age of 74 years old. Inujima is an island in Seto Inner Sea, where most islands confront aging and depopulation. Since the mid 1980’s a near by island Naoshima implemented her art-sites projects and saw success. Currently, the region hosts international art triennale. On 2010, Kazuyo Sejima, a Pritzker laureate architect, and Yuko Hasegawa, an internationally known curator, built small shelters for a permanent art exhibition on Inujima. Landscaping is by the Tokyo based landscape architect Akarui-Heya (a brilliant room). In 2014 by responding to the call from K. Sejima, Yushi Uehara stayed on the island with his family for a month, run small landscape interventions. On 2016, K. Sejima, with Y. Hasegawa, conducted aseries of workshops to alter landscape by means of a new garden on Inujima with internationally renowned Universities such as University of Applied Arts Vienna, Politechnico di Milano, Kyoto Seika University. With presene of Fukutake Foundation, K. Sejima invited Uehara for the workshop designing T-garden (working name) with Akarui-Heya, whom now moved to Inujima with the aim to change the course of this depopulating island. I entitled my work as Foreigs Species and brought member of Uehara Laboratory and a voluntary second year student to this workshop. The process of landscaping is recorded in the videotape and presented in the La Biennale Venezia - 15th International Architecture Exhibition in 2016 as the presentation by SANAA/Kazuyo Sejima and the artistic director Y. Hasegawa.