Writers/Artists
Jen Hofer
Susan Simpson
Matias Viegener
Artist Tamzo illustrated INCH AEONS by Nuala Archer.
A few years ago I made an illustrated map from one street in Koyasan. I talked to about 15 shop owners, listened to all their stories about the shop’s beginning, funny episodes, sometimes even legends. It was probably the first time someone asked them to tell their shop’s story and they were all very eager to tell it. I felt like I was becoming kind of a celebrity in this street.
A short while after the map was finished, a lady I’d interviewed died. She committed suicide. There was lot of commotion about the incident. On my map was a store that was not there anymore. Many people asked questions: “This place does not exist.” “Why is there a store on this map that is not here anymore?” Should I redo this part of the map or leave it like it is? I thought a lot about it.
I don’t know why this lady committed suicide. In my map she looks as happy as she was when I interviewed her. I decided I wanted her to live on like this and decided to leave her in the map. Even when additional copies of the map were printed I asked to leave everything like it was.
People and places change the whole time. When I finish drawing something it changed already to something else. My illustrated map is like a scrap-book of people and places. A different reality, invisible to our eyes keeps on living in my map. That is what makes my illustrations different from other maps and pictures. That small town in my map is like my second “home”.
—Tamzo, Kagoshima Japan, May 2006
Map One
Map Two
