Big Sky Friendship

What does a space full of creativity and love look like in the aftermath of disaster? Held just three years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, this exhibition explored, through artworks and other post-disaster efforts, just what such spaces could look like. Sociologists like Kitahara Itoko and Rebecca Solnit have called these impromptu communities a type of “utopia” where people join hands and help each other above and beyond the call of duty or any local governmental or societal framework. “Big Sky Friendship,” run amid reconstruction efforts as Japan worked to recover from the disaster, brought together artworks addressing how looser, less formal forms of communication can develop between strangers as a result of unlikely catalysts.