麻豆社

First identified in Japan in the 1990s, Hikikomori are socially isolated people, often, though not always, young. Over the last few years Hikikomori have created and featured in music, video games, manga comics and novels.

Christopher Harding explores the closed world of the Hikikomori in the UK, France, Italy and Japan and asks whether art can provide a pathway out of isolation.

He travels to Paris to meet the artist Ymane Chabi-Gara who, in response to a period of depression and isolation, painted herself into images she discovered of male hikikomori in their bedrooms.

Writer Takeshi Chin discusses his novel about the relationship which develops between a hikikomori and the Social Reintegration Worker who is sent to encourage him to re-engage with the world.

And Japanese actor Naoyuki Ikeda explains how his own experience as a hikikomori informed his performance as a Japanese father struggling with his son's social isolation in the Independent film Americcan Hikikomori.

Can the art of isolation help socially isolated young people find pathways to the outside world?

A Soundworks Media production for 麻豆社 Radio 4