Nostalgia in Tokyo 1 - What is Nostalgia?

Cities in Asia are witnessing the rise of nostalgia more than ever before. Perceived as a melancholic longing for the past, nostalgia has emerged as a response to dizzying rates of modernisation which resulted in constant change, discontinuity and displacement among communities.

In contemporary society, the past is collectively reminisced and idealised, manifesting in attempts at rediscovering and recreating historic sites and objects for popular consumption.

Despite this cultural phenomenon, critique of nostalgia tended to be hostile and dismissive. It was often denounced as problematic in its inaccurate portrayal of the past and criticised as an emotive impetus to inauthentic (hi)stories.

Nostalgia had thus been largely avoided in the field of heritage management before recent studies on the potential of nostalgia as a motivating emotion to drive greater attention and concern toward remnants of the past.

Recognising this global epidemic of longing and its influence on the urban environment, this story - comprising 5 parts featuring short documentary videos - seeks to uncover the imaginative tropes of nostalgia, what nostalgia does and how nostalgia is mobilised in urban spaces in Tokyo, Japan.

As a complex and nuanced emotion, nostalgia draws not only from personal experiences, but also a collective longing for the romanticised past – a past possibly detached from direct experiences. While certain individuals of the same community may not conform to the shared longing, some feel nostalgic for places and times unconnected to their roots. What triggers nostalgic sentiments among people? Do such sentiments end up in conflict with the master narrative dictated by top-down efforts on how they should remember the past?

As a prologue to the series of short documentaries, the following video sheds light on the plurality and dissonance of nostalgias that exist alongside the master narrative in rapidly changing urban environments.