Clareto Monsorate

The Tokyo Olympic Games are less than 100 days away. And preparations are in full swing by the organizers to meet the deadline.

On the one hand, due to the coronavirus surge, there have been calls to call off the Games, but on the other hand there are some 70-odd artisans from the tsunami hit Tohoku region ready to deliver handcrafted medals, as a kind gesture, to countries and international organizations that lent a helping hand to the area during the 2011 earthquake.

By distributing medals, these artisans hope it will be an opportunity to get the message out about creative activities in the region.

The idea was conceptualized in 2018 by French potter Bruno Pifre. The 63-year-old, who is based in the northeast Japan town of Oishida, Yamagata Prefecture, said, “I want to give medals made by us artisans to athletes coming to Japan.”

Pifre is also keen on giving these unique medals to athletes who do not win gold, silver or bronze at the Olympics.

The medals are 9 centimeters in diameter and have a thickness of 2 cm at maximum. The finished products are placed in 10-centimeter square paulownia boxes, and two to three each will be presented to every supporting country. In all, a total of 70 artisans, artists, designers and other craftspeople from the six prefectures in the Tohoku region were recruited to the project.

The materials for the medals include a variety of ceramics, glass, wood, metal and Japanese washi paper, and pairs of 61 idiosyncratic medal designs were produced by November 2020.

The recipients will include more than 20 embassies in Japan of countries that sent rescue teams to 17 disaster-hit areas from Aomori to Fukushima prefectures. These include South Korea, Singapore, Germany, the US and Turkey.

Also included are international institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, which sent their specialists to Japan following the disaster.