SINGAPORE — For 12-year-olds Yuji Kurata and Kaito Moue, visiting Singapore is something they look forward to. The schoolmates are here for the third time and their itinerary sounds like every other touristy kid on a summer holiday — spending time at the likes of Art Science Museum at Marina Bay Sands and Sentosa.

Except the pair are from a small town called Hirono in Fukushima prefecture, a town located just 22km away from where the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster struck following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Moue and Kurata join 18 of their schoolmates aged nine to 12 who are here as part of the Miracle Kutchie Experience, a two-week art retreat programme organised by LaSalle College of the Arts and non-profit organisation Today Is The Day, for kids who had experienced the trauma and continue to live with the effects of radiation every day.

ART FOR GOOD

“I wanted to do something for the children. There are many programmes set up after the Fukushima disaster, but none looking after the kids or tackling the trauma suffered by them,” said Noritoshi Hirakawa, director of the non-profit foundation and a contemporary artist himself. Hirakawa hit upon the idea of art therapy but it was not until 2013 when he met Milenko Prvacki, a Singapore-based visual artist and Cultural Medallion recipient who teaches in LaSalle, that a more concrete programme took shape.

LaSalle College of the Arts has an art therapy masters programme and the discipline is recognised here, unlike in Japan where the medical authorities take a more conservative stance towards a non-clinical approach. “Therapy is also still somewhat a touchy subject in Japan. The Japanese don’t like to address the topic or that they need counselling or therapy,” revealed Hirakawa.

Moreover, Singapore is an ideal location. It is safe and clean, and Hirakawa could rely on the large Japanese expat population who are all too willing to come forward as volunteers for the programme and play host to these kids. 

Still, it was an uphill task convincing the parents in Hirono to send their kids for this retreat. For one, Hirakawa revealed that the town — and others like it in the area — has been scarred by the influx of new organisations and businesses coming in and making promises to rebuild the city, only to take off soon after. 

“Hirono is a small town. Its people know and trust one another. They get suspicious of new people saying that they want to help, but are really trying to make money and take advantage of their situation in the aftermath of 3/11,” explained Hirakawa. “We had to work hard to show we meant well and this can only benefit the kids. We expect nothing from them (as the programme is fully funded with support from Red Cross Singapore).”

Hirakawa managed to get eight kids to sign up for the art retreat for the first year in 2014. The number grew after word of the positive experience reached other parents. 

ART THERAPY IN MOTION

As part of the art retreat programme, the kids spend 90 minutes every day at LaSalle in a private art therapy session. 

“The core of this particular project is to address the trauma of the disaster in a non-intrusive way,” said Ronald Lay, art therapist and programme leader of LaSalle’s MA Art Therapy programme. “The art therapy is tailor-made for the kids, cultural specific and age-appropriate. It is facilitated by post-graduate art therapy students and supervised by international art therapists.”

Lay shared that the programme takes an open-studio approach to art therapy whereby there is a theme to the content and the children are free to interpret it. “For example, one theme we did was to get kids to think of themselves and express it non-verbally as an icon, personal symbol and create that image,” said Lay. “It was followed by a discussion and sharing of the image.”

Fellow art therapist Toshiko Kobayashi, who is involved in the art retreat, revealed this was a “safe environment” for children to explore and express their feelings, whereby a drawing of a flower need not necessarily look like a flower. “It’s fine even if it’s a black or brown stick. That’s their flower,” she added. 

Lay revealed he has noticed a difference in the kids who have been involved in the programme in the last three years. “What I observed is there is a sustaining relationship that these kids have with the other participants and facilitators. They are also more comfortable in exploring art. For example, boys are usually shy-er in terms of group setting but the boys who were here will be more participative.”

Besides their daily therapy sessions, the kids are brought to different organisations to partake in art workshops. At the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, they tried drypoint etching; at the National Gallery Singapore, they interacted with Prvacki before doing their own collages and drawings; at Goodman Arts Centre the kids attempted ceramic making. 

At the end of their retreat, the kids will be exhibiting their creations at an exhibition as part of their farewell party at *Scape on Aug 7, from 1.30pm to 4pm. 

Hirakawa said this four-year programme is a pilot project which he hopes can be exported for use in other countries and by other organisations, expounding on its merits as a method to help participants heal themselves.

“Art therapy is one of the ways we can tap on to help children cope — art is a powerful tool to solve internal and mental issues after experiencing such traumatic events. Already, we can see they are happier and different from when we first started. The time away from Hirono is good for them.”