Kura Tengyo
Tengyo calls himself a vagabond. After moving to the U.S. in 2001, he has worked as a teacher and photo storyteller in Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa. In 2017, he began to participate in TURN Interactive Program, and in 2018, he exhibited a photo story documenting his exchange activities with welfare facilities in Africa at TURN FES 4. From the end of the same year to early 2019, Tengyo stayed at Takeshi Cultural Center (a welfare facility for people with disabilities in Hamamatsu) as part of Shizuoka Prefecture Cultural Program, and worked on making a café-like space where he bridges the neighborhood community and the facility. By living at one place for a certain period of time as a vagabond (outsider) who is culturally socially unstable, he practices what he calls “culture dives” creating fluctuations in the daily life of himself and the people he meets there in order to seek an out-of-the-box way to live between people. Since May 2020, Tengyo has been working at NPO The room for Full of Voice Words and Hearts “Cocoroom” in Osaka where he opens up opportunities for cross-cultural or / and multi-cultural exchanges through his hospitality with serving coffee while he is in charge of radio production and communication with overseas organizations at “Cocoroom”.