MA-UMI Residencies 23 -MUR 023 27/1-10/2/2026 | Ishigaki | Japan

島嶼の遺産  insular legacies

“The project investigates foraging as a practice of shared rooting that fosters relationships and mutual care between local and newly forming communities. Informed by methodologies developed in the Greek islands, we trace how the vegetation of Ishigaki functioned as a living infrastructure of survival.”

Lou Perret and Dimitris Theodoropoulos’s project traces Ishigaki’s long history of movement and exchange: its relationship with Taiwan; population mobility before, during, and after the war; cultivation techniques introduced by Taiwanese communities; survival strategies during periods of food shortage; the malaria that devastated the region; and the arrival of people from Okinawa who came to cultivate the land in the postwar years. It also considers the Ryōfumaru, the boat that connected Ishigaki to mainland Japan, and the presence of the Americans, who introduced canned food after the war and contributed to the eradication of malaria.

Through stories, practices, objects, and materials, they propose an open-ended installation that captures the richness of the island across multiple formats—video, visual narratives, and notebooks. The project highlights the complexity of island territories shaped at the edges of their relationships with the wider world.

For their final presentation, Lou and Dimitris discussed roots and muiakkon — a wartime technique of growing sweet potatoes underground, hidden and protected in the soil.

Through interviews with farmers and cultural actors across Yaeyama, they uncovered a rich diversity of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other root crops — each carrying stories of survival, exchange, and care. More than food, these roots form a living ecosystem and a shared heritage that sustained communities through crisis.

An underground crop.

A communal network.

A legacy growing forward.

[アッコンパンたり]  “Akkon pantari!”

“Akkon is potato, pantari is getting fat. A clumsy way to get fat

You’re getting fat on potato means you don’t have much money, you only eat potato. If you have money you get fat on other stuff. It’s the poor people way of getting fat.” Fumio Inoe

朝食にイモを食べました。つまり、昼食と夕食にもイモを食べました。
“I had potato for breakfast, sweet potato I mean, for lunch and dinner.” Interview: Setsuko Yamazato

Heartfelt thanks to the Ishigaki community for sharing their deep love and knowledge of potatoes at Ma Umi residencies.

photos, text by Valerie Portefaix.
https://www.maumiresidencies.org/

Lou Perret is a Swiss anthropologist whose work focuses on the intersections of globalization, local territories, and cultural practices. He holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences (Anthropology) from the University of Neuchâteland is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Asian Studies, specializing in Japanese language and culture, at the University of Geneva, with an exchange at the University of Tokyo. His research includes fieldwork on Tinos Island, examining the relationship between global dynamics and local communities.