Kodomo No Kuni

Kodomo No Kuni is the name of a children’s park located between Tokyo and Yokohama, which means “the land of children”.

It is nice to spatialize a period of our lives and to extract it from the flow of time and make it a distinct entity, a body separate from the one we inhabit in adulthood. That’s why we always idealize childhood as a playful territory, where the only existing colors are the primary ones, and the only shapes are the triangle, the circle and the square. A simple world full of endless possibilities.

However, the playground I remember was destroyed by an explosion in the underground parking lot beneath it. And while that is unfortunate, it is for me a more accurate vision of the “land of children”: it lies in ruins, everything is gray and faded, and no one remembers the last time children played there.

Childhood is the key to identity. It seems wiser to keep it in our pocket, imagining what lies beyond the door rather than resigning ourselves to opening it.