On Sunday I'm Launching Candy Chang's InternationalBefore I Die Project In Kawaura. It'sJapan's Second

On Sunday I'm launching Candy Chang's international Before I Die project in Kawaura. It's Japan's second installation of the project, and I'm excited to bring it to my rural community. I'm especially looking forward to the potential social impact of this piece. Kawaura is a shrinking, elderly community of 5,000 people, so "before I die, I want to..." becomes a more immediate statement here. Beyond the elderly, I hope this project encourages the local young people to dream big. Amakusa is a somewhat poor, isolated island, and many of my students when asked what they want to be, reply office worker, nurse, or farmer. There's nothing wrong with those careers, but it's always nurse, never doctor. I hope this wall makes them think deeper about the possibilities in their lives. It goes up on Sunday and stays up for the month of September. 

I put up Inside the Head of Jeremy Sorese (ジェレミ・ソリスの頭の中）on December 18th at Kawaura Jr. High School, one of my schools . It features pages of his sketchbook drawn while he was living in Europe last year. I'm excited to be sharing his outstanding work with the students for the remainder of the month.

Hey, artists living in Chicago, take this short survey!

Your responses could probably will end up in an article I'm writing for Sixty.

Kumamoto Nichi Newspaper. October 25, 2013.

"Before I die I want to..." Written on a blackboard placed at the Kawaura-machi Nakamura Community Center are those words along with the hopes of local residents. Zachary Johnson, twenty-five from Illinois in the US, working as an assistant language teacher in Kawaura, created the wall. According to Johnson, it's part of a public art project which began in New Orleans, US. In over forty countries, various people have installed the same kind of project, he said. Some hopes written by Kawaura residents were, "I want to become rich", "I want to have lots of dogs", etc. Johnson stated, "I want to give people a way to express the dreams they normally keep silent." The piece can be seen until the 29th. 

"A gay man was here. November 19th." Click the tag #wearehere to learn more about this project and how you can get involved.

Six draft pages from autumn 2013 edition of The Yoka, a publication by and for JET Program participants in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. I developed the color scheme from local wild flowers which I threw under the scanner. I'll post the finished publication when it's released later this month.