K3

K3 isa project keeping everyday culture in circulation.

Cultural ecosystem

Overcoming gentrification through cultural circulation

As rising land prices displace everyday life, traditional culture, and artists' bases, K3 responds by building cultural circulation.

Row houses and alleys in K3
Shops and workshops layered together
A cultural base in the neighborhood

K3 at a glance

Return revenue to local places, creative work, and public programs to keep culture in circulation.

01

Keep the mix

K3 treats the close layering of row houses, alleys, shops, workshops, and art bases as a local resource.

02

Prioritize cultural circulation

Economy is necessary, but the center is the environment where culture can keep forming.

03

Avoid replacement

The aim is not only to raise value, but to avoid replacing the conditions of everyday life and expression.

Background

What is gentrification?

The term asks not whether a neighborhood changes, but who receives the benefits and carries the costs of that change.

1964 / Ruth Glass

Where the word began

Sociologist Ruth Glass used the term in 1964 to describe middle-class residents moving into working-class London neighborhoods and displacing existing residents and local character.

1960s–1970s / SoHo, New York

The lesson of SoHo

Artists turned inexpensive industrial lofts into homes and studios, but the cultural and historic value they created was later converted into real-estate value, followed by commercialization and rising costs.

A changing neighborhood

K3 / Position

K3 works against artists becoming only a force that raises local value. It keeps bases for staying, making, and presenting in the neighborhood so new people can learn, create, and carry culture forward.

Reference

Learning from a cultural ecosystem

K3 stands for Tokyo, Kyojima, Chaos.

K3 protects local cultural resources in Tokyo's shitamachi and builds a cycle that carries them forward through stays, creative work, and public programs.

Row houses and alleys in Kyojima
A cultural activity open to the neighborhood

Gudskul / Jakarta

Gudskul is a public learning space for collective study and contemporary art, formed by three Jakarta-based art collectives: ruangrupa, Serrum, and Grafis Huru Hara (GHH).

What is Gudskul? It explores how culture can continue through dialogue, sharing, and collaborative practice—not only through making individual works.

  • A shared ecosystem formed by ruangrupa, Serrum, and Grafis Huru Hara
  • Collective study through dialogue and experience-sharing
  • A model for pooling resources and working together
Visit the Gudskul website
The exterior of Gudskul
A scene from activities at Gudskul

Invitation

Would you like to come to K3?

Stay, participate, or support. Find an entry point that fits you and join the cultural cycle in Kyojima.