Since the 1990s, “art projects” (アートプロジェクト) have become an increasingly popular method of machizukuri, or communitybuilding, in Japan’s urban as well as rural areas. Today, a wide range of large-scale development projects, ward-level initiatives, and smaller independent efforts emphasize the arts’ potential to foster social cohesion, support economic revitalization, and enhance the livability of urban space. One area where these developments can be observed is Tokyo’s Sumida Ward. Here, experimental approaches to vacant housing, disaster prevention, and community-building have been intersecting with artistic practices since the early 2000s. Today, a growing number of (often young) creatives are active in the neighbourhood, organizing and participating in neighbourhood -based projects such as the Sumida River Sumiyume Art Project (Fig. 1) or the Sumida Mukōjima EXPO (Fig. 3). My research focuses on this dynamic creative ecosystem in Sumida Ward, where artistic interventions intersect with everyday life and processes of urban transformation.

In my dissertation, I examine how power is constantly (re)negotiated between actors in the multi-layered structure of Sumida’s creative ecosystem amid demographic shifts and urban redevelopment. Rather than merely treating creativity as an economic driver, I explore how artistic practices are shared locally, under what conditions they can take root sustainably, and how they might contribute to the neighbourhood‘s long-term social and spatial transformation. Through this approach, I aim to contribute to broader discussions on the role of artistic interventions in shaping urban futures and negotiating power relations within community-based forms of urban change.

This research employs a reflexive and immersive ethnographic approach that attends to the emergent, sensory, and affective dimensions of fieldwork contexts.

So far, I have concluded:

• 12 months of ethnographic field reseearch (funded by the MEXT scholarship)
• Digital ethnography
• Formal and informal interview

In my research, I use two art projects as situated lenses that ground my inquiry in the lived realities of Sumida‘s neighbourhoods and their creative ecosystem, making visible the everyday negotiations through which creativity is shared and change is negotiated.

• Sumida River Sumiyume Art Project (2016-today): annual, multi-month, government supportet art project
• Sumida Mukojima EXPO (20020-today): annual, one-month-long, independent, community-oriented art project

• The neighbourhood and its creative ecosystem are shaped by multi-scalar processes of negotiation that are enacted through art projects
• Creative initiatives generate precedents, expanding imaginaries of what is possible
• Creative initiatives act as intermediaries that channel funds, attention, and networks into the neighbourhood
• Visibility, accessibility, diversity, embeddedness, and continuity are key to archiving sustained social and spatial transformation