ABSTRACT
Haikyo (literally, ruins) is an activity that involves seeking adventure in abandoned places scattered across Japan. The haikyo movement, which is gaining participants and fans, involves visiting sites, photographing them, and sharing the photographs online and through books and other media. The transformation of Japan into a postindustrial society left behind numerous industrial sites for haikyo enthusiasts. The economic downturn of the so-called “Lost Decades” of the 1990s and 2000s created an added inventory of abandoned places that once represented the splendor of Japanese consumerism. This chapter draws on the author’s experience as a photographer of two types of modern ruins—industrial and postindustrial—to reflect on the haikyo phenomena and examine the social, technological, and historical conditions that have made mass production and consumption of haikyo imagery possible. Physical ruins are more than playgrounds. As the debris of history, they reveal past dreams and ambitions buried under new social and economic conditions. The exploration of ruins, in this respect, has the potential to create critical awareness of Japan’s recent neoliberal trends, where job security and economic confidence have been washed away by privatization, globalization, and financialization. More than being just a popular pastime, haikyo provides redemptive and liberating alternatives.
