“A year ago, I visited Aichi prefecture in the end of summer. It was to reflect on the work of Nobuya Hitsuda, as well as to see the exhibition “In the Little Playground: Hitsuda Nobuya and his surrounding students” that reflects on the time, in his 40 years of teaching experience, he spent with his students, such as Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito, Kyoko Murase, Mika Kato and many more.

Although having visited on an assignment, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Even for people who are actively recognized, there are still moments, numerous times in your life, where one needs to spend those blue hours alone. The process, to be alone, to suffer with unsettled emotion, is necessary to move forward.

Around the same time, I was asked by chance to write an essay, and decided to write on raising children. Raising children is also about continuous time that cannot be controlled. In the end of that summer, those were the two things that were on my mind, so I decided to put together an issue for Here and There, focusing on the blue hour that can make our lives colorful, as well as the color blue itself.

I looked up at the blue sky. Blue is a color that represents the beauty of nature, but at the same time, it exists in many things manmade. Blue can be found in clothing you wear against your skin, somewhere near you, and far away. The aim is to seek for a blue in personal emotions and in the growing process of people and to find it scattered in the world. This, hoping that it will be an attempt to sprout something in people’s hearts.”

—Nakako Hayashi

Elein Fleiss, Purple Journal’s editor-in-chief, speaks of Nakako Hayashi and her magazine Here and There: When I met Nakako Hayashi, she was still working for Hanatsubaki magazine. Then, in 2001 she decided to go on her own and started Here and There in the spring of 2002. The first issue came out in March of that year, and the moment I first saw it remains in my memory as an important event in the world of independent magazines.

Here and There is the magazine of one person. The fact that Nakako’s name is credited as the author on the cover is not an egocentric statement but reveals the spirit in which she makes it. Some people make films, others write books or make artworks, and Nakako makes a magazine. It is her personal work and in that sense she makes it in her own way, unlike most magazines on the planet. It also means she is free from capitalistic rules, from imposed trends, from the industry of fashion. Instead, she is free to follow her desire and to link the magazine with her personal life.