Finding solace in grandma’s cooking: architectural storytelling to mourn at home

Abstract

A familiar set of scenes. A kitchen in a Japanese suburb. A grandmother peels vegetables, while keeping eye and ear on her daughter, who is asking for cooking advice. Time passes. Her grandsons and her son-in-law gather around, open the fridge, drink iced tea. The kitchen is filled with old utensils, hanging pots and pans on the walls. White tiles shine with the morning sun, pouring in right above the sink through the window that looks out to the exterior garden. A central table is used as a gathering surface, where later on, corn kernels will be prepared in tempura. This is a family mourning ritual. They’ve gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the family’s eldest son, they do so by cooking and eating. The grandparental home becomes a sanctuary, a funerary shrine where the act of remembrance unfolds every year. The scene belongs to Hirokazu Kore’eda’s Still Walking (Aruitemo Aruitemo), a director in whose work “death looms over”1, constantly exploring and expressing the axiom that “life is often lived in the shadow of death.”