dublab has always received so much love and support from Japan. In this time of great need we want to give back. On March 23rd we hosted a live broadcast focused on lifting spirits and raising funds for Japan. You can see a video/audio archive of the webcast at Yowie or in the window above.

The live broadcast featured music and conversation with: Butchy Fuego, Cut Chemist, frosty, the Gaslamp Killer, Hashim B, Helado Negro, Kozy, Matthewdavid, Mia Doi Todd, Money Mark, Nobody, Prince Rama, Samiyam, Shibuya crew, Topping Bottoms and many more friends from Japan and beyond. Beautiful “Mended Hinomaru” image by Akikounico.

We have established a donation fund through Global Giving’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Relief Fund which allocates funds to NGO’s on the ground in the disasater area.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW!

A message of insight and call for support from our friends at Creative Commons Japan…

dear dublab and protons,

Thanks so much for your support, and we’d like to thank you and all the people who have donated so far, on behalf of everyone listening to dublab from Japan now. Your program really gives us much energy and motivation, and that’s so important for all of us living in Japan right now.

At this moment, Tokyo and the peripheral cities are relatively safe despite the fear of the nuclear plant’s situation, but it really is the people in the northern-east region who need immediate help. They are the ones who are directly suffering from the tsunamis, earthquakes and radioactive contamination. They are still short of material supplies like clean water, foods, and in addition to the 30,000+ victims, there are more than 300,000 people in refugee status and they need to be sheltered from cold, disease and aftershocks.

But even Tokyo is slowly being affected by radioactivity; on March 23rd the government announced that babies should not drink tap water, and bottled water is sold out everywhere. And the aftershocks are just not stopping. There have been 700+ aftershocks since 3.11, so not only the people directly affected in the north-east area but people throughout the Kanto region have been very tense.

We are already starting to see the impact on our daily lives; for instance, one of the biggest art festivals in Japan, Roppongi Art Night that was scheduled for March 26th has been canceled, and our joint event with dublab, “Infinity Loops” is unfortunately not happening any more. Many other art exhibitions, concerts, live events and other cultural activities have been postponed or cancelled; even CD releases are delayed due to confusion in the distribution network. The electricity shortage is affecting almost all the east side of Japan, and it will continue at least until summer, and probably until next year. The government said there has been 25 trillion ($250 billion) yen in direct damage from the disaster already, which is 4% of Japan’s GDP [source]. Even in Shibuya stores are closing much earlier than usual, and lights are being turned off around 9 or 10pm. Already, some event organizing companies are going bankrupt, and the whole economy that depends on culture is being endangered.

A more positive side of this change, as pointed out by several cultural figures especially on the web, is that more people are starting to actively gather information, and are committed to helping the affected people through Twitter and Facebook. For instance there are new NGOs and grass-roots movements emerging around Twitter, like todoke.org that publicly collects requests from companies in order to send materials that people in the north-east need immediately. Artists are also starting new fund raising activities on Twitter. It’s quite amazing to see all these positive grass-roots movements rising from the Web in such a disastrous situation. Social awareness and solidarity are suddenly rising, and we feel that this is a ray of hope in the dark.

That’s why this kind of support is really appreciated and needed for Japan now; money is surely needed for NGOs on the ground in the north-east to fully help the affected people, and cultural and psychological support like “Dublab Loves Japan” really helps all Japanese residents to stay positive and overcome the fears and anxieties of the aftershocks, radioactivity and the upheavals of the whole social structure we are living in. And we already know this situation is going to last here for a quite long time.

Again, thank you so much for all of your support, and hope we can start collaborating again soon!

Peace from the Infinity Loops team (infinityloops.cc),

Dominick Chen (Creative Commons Japan)

Masaaki Hara (Corde Inc.)

Takahiro Saito (Creative Commons Japan)