I had the extremely good fortune to be invited to speak at Tokyo’s second annual Fermentation Future Forum (F3) earlier this month. I attended and spoke at the first F3 in January 2017 and I spent that week in Tokyo and at the forum wide-eyed, so happy and with a very full belly. F3 is organized by cultural luminary Teruo Kurosaki and his bright and creative staff including festival creative director Kentaro Ichiki. Kurosaki-san is a world renowned designer, former founder-owner of Idee, founder of the Tokyo United Nations University Farmers Market, publisher-owner of Media Surf, owner-founder of Midori co-working spaces, Freedom University and much, much more. I had the pleasure of initially getting to know him through a project that I edited for Hawthorne Books — the English edition of True Portland — which came out summer 2017. Check out our super fun launch party for it last June at Reverend Nat's Hard Cidery.
Pretty soon after Kurosaki-san and I met in 2016 he was interested in the annual Portland Fermentation Festival which I co-founded with my dear friends George Winborn and David Barber in 2009. Some folks close to him attended our late October 2016 festival and the next thing you know I had an invite to come speak at his first annual Fermentation Future Forum in early 2017. Kurosaki-san (and his bright team!) works fast!
Check out my post about last year's F3 here.
There is much to share about this year's 2018 F3 and I think that photos do the best job. They give you an eye into just how special and inspiring the weekend was. The audio both of my talks are embedded below if you want to have a listen. The translated talks took place at Akarenga Sake Brewery aka Red Brick in Kita and in the Fermentation Lounge at the United Nations University in Shibuya.
I am so honored that I got to be a part of Tokyo’s first and now second annual Fermentation Future Forum and I hope that we have many years of colorful, creative and inspiring collaboration ahead between the Fermentation Future Forum and the Portland Fermentation Festival which inspired F3. I'm also so very happy that Jimbo and I got to attend F3 together and both contribute to the great energy and vitality of it all. Check out Jimbo's awesome F3 playlist here. So good!
I didn't end up using the closing words that my dear friends Earnest and Yuri Migaki of Jorinji Miso translated and helped me to speak so I'm posting that below as well as a belated thank you to everyone who attended, organized and made this year's F3 in Tokyo so wonderful.
Fermentation Future Forum (F3) fermentationfutureforum.org
My talk with Teruo Kurosaki (Mediasurf, Midori++) and Hozu Yamamoto (Tokyo Art Gallery), moderated by Etsuyo Okajima (Freedom University) at F3 at Akarenga/Red Brick Sake Brewery:
My Q&A moderated by Etsuyo Okajima (Freedom University) and translated by Masaki Yam (United Nations University Farmers Market) and Takeshi Okuno (Mediasurf++):
Without further ado, all sorts of 2018 F3 pics: