Yamanote stories

Yamanote Stories grows from investigations into how to present the walks from SOPG:Yamanote. For this branch of the project I have joined forces with artist, maker-of-spaces and noticer-of-details Orie Inoue.

Although the original Yamanote walks were documented with lots of photographs, it was clear that SoPG:Yamanote was not a photography project. Yamanote Stories explores a way of presenting the narratives of the 29 walks whilst engaging the audience with a sense of journey and discovery.

Yamanote Stories will be a series of mp3 audio files available for download. Each story will re-present a walk that began from one of the 29 stations of the Yamanote line. Each story will last the same amount of time as it takes to travel on a Yamanote line train between that station and the next. Sit down, close your eyes and listen as you are transported around Tokyo.

Time also becomes a factor in shaping the stories as they are presented here. How do the narratives change shape and develop with successive re-tellings over time and between languages?

Stories from the past retold in the present and interwoven with the now.