Shunsuke Iwai is a creative director at a top global technology firm in California. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, he has been supporting community-building organizations in tsunami-hit Ishinomaki City as a pro-bono activity, working on creative strategy and executions as well as educational programs. Ben Matsuzaki is the President of Herman Miller Japan. A frequent collaborator with Iwai, Matsuzaki works as a pro-bono adviser on several community-building initiatives in Ishinomaki City, including the locally-incubated DIY furniture designer and manufacturer “Ishinomaki Laboratory.”
Even prior to the 2011 tsunami, Ishinomaki was a textbook example of a post-industrial city, suffering from a hollowed-out downtown, high unemployment, and high rates of population outflow to more affluent cities like Tokyo. In their work, Iwai and Matsuzaki partner with organizations that seek not to return Ishinomaki to the way it was prior to the tsunami, but rather to capitalize on the recovery effort as a means of addressing social, economic, and demographic ills that have plagued the city for several decades. Especially central to their activities are addressing urban blight and vacant real estate in downtown Ishinomaki, and promoting vocational education in art and design and local economic empowerment.
The program will begin with a presentation by Iwai and Matsuzaki, and continues with a panel discussion with Stamps Professor Nick Tobier about the ways in which art and design have been utilized to promote social and economic vitality in Ishinomaki City and Detroit.