On July 23rd and 24th of 2013, Mr. Kojiro Hirose, who is an associate professor at the National
Museum of Ethnology, was invited to Hiroshima Bunka Gakuin University to give a lecture and
two workshops concerning his flexible, barrier-free “kyokatsushakai” theory.
Mr.Hirose proposed the possibility of relying on “tactile sense culture” as a method of intellectual
search, which was independent of relying on only one’s visual sense. This concept of “tactile sense
culture,” could have a number of possible applications for the field of education.
By sharpening one’s “tactile sense,” this helps us to gain more understanding about people
who uses the “tactile sense”, which then develops our abilities to understand others. In addition,
it opens the possibility of “self-understanding,” by going back to our primitive beginnings that
is not based on the “visual sense” alone. In fact, during the early years of our infancy, we rely
more on our “tactile sense” more than our “visual sense,” which relates to the origins of art itself.
This paper introduces Mr. Hirose’s workshop which aimed at building a sensibility to understand
others; a “self-understanding” of children; and thinking through rediscovery of the “tactile sense”
and “art expression”.