Early Years

Nara was born in the city of Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture in the northernmost region of mainland Japan, near an area once occupied by the 8th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army; his elementary and junior high schools were former army barracks. A latchkey kid, he often played alone while his parents worked, with an abandoned ammunition depot serving as one of his first “playgrounds.” Nara had the sensation that the “entire area was filled with debris and ghosts.” During World War II, the U.S. Allied occupation had turned parts of the imperial army site into its Misawa Air Base, which throughout Nara’s childhood supported American war efforts in Vietnam.

One of the artist’s earliest, most visceral memories is tuning in to the midnight Far East Network (FEN) radio broadcast that served the base. Living among past and current symbols of warfare, Nara listened to news of the Vietnam War broadcast in Japanese and to American rock and folk. As the political landscape of the world changed with the Vietnam War, and as Japanese protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty increased, Nara was captivated by folk songs of the civil rights era and antiwar rock music, and he delved deeper into folk through Appalachian music and its various roots in African and British ballads. The footage of the war that Nara saw on TV and in newspapers was burned deep into his mind as he listened to these songs, and he felt he was experiencing the war in real time. Nara developed a strong ethical conviction to always pursue what felt “real” based on his lived experience.