「Tenbun Closing」
「天文のれんを下ろす」
Abstract:
This visual-ethnography presentation is the latest chapter of the saga of Tenbun, a tachinomiya (“standing bar”) in Osaka, Japan; the focus will be the shop’s final days. Tenbun, with its long counter and blue noren curtains, has a lively atmosphere and plenty of colorful characters, including the owner, employees and regular customers. Based on my years of patronage, nearly two years of dedicated participant-observation and photography, a photo exhibition and other post-fieldwork encounters, the project has examined in the Japanese context the complexities of personal privacy in public spaces, and the intersection of food anthropology, multimodal research methods, recent research on drinking establishments and the plethora of “foodie” media productions.
In March 2020, Tenbun’s noren came down for the final time, after 40 years of business (for reasons unrelated to coronavirus). During Tenbun’s last week, customers rushed to visit the bar, taking a break from earlier attempts at social distancing. For me, it was a period of intense photography and salvage ethnography. I could not unobtrusively capture the natural setting, or rely upon the serendipity of street photography (Luvaas 2017), as I had previously. The owner called me his personal photographer, and he and others wanted posed photos. Margaret Mead wrote about the importance of salvage ethnography through visual anthropology methodology (1967). Out of necessity, eating and drinking behavior has changed and many izakaya, tachinomiya and restaurants have been forced to close. My photographs not only preserve Tenbun but also document the eating, drinking and socializing habits of Japan before the COVID-19 pandemic.
AJJ (Anthropology of Japan in Japan) 2020 Annual Meeting
Sunday, December 6, 2020 @ 10:00 AM (Japan time)
The conference is online and free. Participants must register. For registration, schedule and more information:
https://tinyurl.com/AJJ2020
This visual-ethnography presentation is the latest chapter of the saga of Tenbun, a tachinomiya (“standing bar”) in Osaka, Japan; the focus will be the shop’s final days. Tenbun, with its long counter and blue noren curtains, has a lively atmosphere and plenty of colorful characters, including the owner, employees and regular customers. Based on my years of patronage, nearly two years of dedicated participant-observation and photography, a photo exhibition and other post-fieldwork encounters, the project has examined in the Japanese context the complexities of personal privacy in public spaces, and the intersection of food anthropology, multimodal research methods, recent research on drinking establishments and the plethora of “foodie” media productions.
In March 2020, Tenbun’s noren came down for the final time, after 40 years of business (for reasons unrelated to coronavirus). During Tenbun’s last week, customers rushed to visit the bar, taking a break from earlier attempts at social distancing. For me, it was a period of intense photography and salvage ethnography. I could not unobtrusively capture the natural setting, or rely upon the serendipity of street photography (Luvaas 2017), as I had previously. The owner called me his personal photographer, and he and others wanted posed photos. Margaret Mead wrote about the importance of salvage ethnography through visual anthropology methodology (1967). Out of necessity, eating and drinking behavior has changed and many izakaya, tachinomiya and restaurants have been forced to close. My photographs not only preserve Tenbun but also document the eating, drinking and socializing habits of Japan before the COVID-19 pandemic.
AJJ (Anthropology of Japan in Japan) 2020 Annual Meeting
Sunday, December 6, 2020 @ 10:00 AM (Japan time)
The conference is online and free. Participants must register. For registration, schedule and more information:
https://tinyurl.com/AJJ2020
See also:
Photo Exhibition and Visual Ethnography - "Tachinomiya: There Are Two Sides to Every Noren"
AJJ Presentation - Tachinomiya: Photo Exhibition as Research Method
「Tachinomiya: Photo Exhibition as Post-Fieldwork Encounter」- Society for East Asian Anthropology Regional Conference 2019 in Tokyo
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