DDW21 | Hara Hachi Bu village
Practice room for taking a step back
During DDW you can visit the Hara Hachi Bu village: a circle of second-hand garden sheds, refurbished and ready for a second life. Not grand, not geared towards more, but towards together. A space to practice taking a step back. Here it’s all about enough, about less, about 80% instead of always 100%.
Some years ago, designer/artist Arne Hendriks visited the Japanese island of Okinawa, where he was welcomed by the elegant Madame Kuranari. She served him local molluscs with miso and seaweed and wished him: 'hara hachi bu'. When he didn’t understand she placed two fingers on her left arm and took five steps. Then she took one finger-step back and picked this fifth imaginary step from her arm and gave it to him. This is how he learnt the meaning of ‘hara hachi bu’: don’t eat until you are full, but only until you are no longer hungry. Give yourself some space, because without it, there is no more room for change.
This simple advice to reserve 20% inspired Hendriks to establish the Hara Hachi Bu University (HHBU). A place to study and tell stories, a place to practice what it means for humanity to do less instead of more.
DDW invited Hendriks to continuate this public research. By building a Hara Hachi Bu Village, Hendriks together with numerous designers, scientists, artist and the DDW audience gives his interpretation of The Greater Number. Let us practice what it’s like to take a step back and make space for something else, whatever or whoever that may be.
A project by Arne Hendriks. On invitation of Dutch Design Week in collab with MU.
Where: next to ketelhuislplein on Strijp-S | When: during DDW, 16 - 24 October | Entrance: free | Programme will follow