A decade after the Great East Japan Earthquake, MOA exhibition explores recovery, renewal
A Future for Memory stems from the triple disaster of March 2011
Rescued damaged photos found in Yamamoto-chō in Watari District, Miyagi Prefecture on display at the Hiroshi Watanabe Studio, LA in 2012. Photo: Munemasa Takakashi. ©Lost & Found Project.
A Future for Memory: Art and Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake runs February 11 to September 5 at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.
ON MARCH 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake, at a magnitude of 9.0, devastated the nation, triggering a 15-metre tsunami and the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. More than 15,000 people perished, and thousands of others have never been found. Tokyo-born Fuyubi Nakamura, curator for Asia at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, went to the heavily hit Miyagi Prefecture that spring as a volunteer and spent months helping in any way she could.
She cooked for survivors and assisted with aid delivery, but most of her time was spent rescuing and cleaning photographs, many of them heavily damaged, that were found amid the wreckage. In a phone interview with Stir, Nakamura explains that remnants of so many destroyed homes, schools, and buildings are often referred to as “debris”. It’s not a word she’s comfortable with.
“It’s not just debris—it’s made up of somebody’s belongings,” Nakamura says. “It’s objects that people kept at home that were washed away by the tsunami. We couldn’t rescue everything, but we kept finding photographs—objects of memories, something that would be important to local residents. It was easy to recognize the importance of rescuing photos from somebody’s albums.
“Most people in the tsunami-stricken region lost everything,” she says. “They lost their homes. They wanted to look for their own objects to keep their memories and their history in those photographs alive.”
Prior to COVID-19, Nakamura has returned to the disaster region every year as an anthropologist to conduct research. Her personal experiences in the area laid the foundation for a new group exhibition at MOA called A Future for Memory: Art and Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake. Curated by Nakamura, it opens on February 11—in time to commemorate the triple disaster’s upcoming 10th anniversary, often referred to as 3.11—and runs until September 5.
The exhibition of eight artists and organizations from Japan explores the menace of nature as well as its extraordinary ability to regenerate.
Included in the exhibition is a collection of approximately 5,000 photos that were found in Yamamoto Town in Miyagi Prefecture by the Memory Salvage Project. Those images were digitized and added to a database in hopes that they’ll be reunited with their owners. To date, about 750,000 photographs have been found in Yamamoto Town alone,and the effort of reunification is ongoing.
From that work came the Lost & Found Project, which exhibits extremely damaged photos around the world as a way to share people’s lives and experiences. The exhibition includes 17 videos from the center for remembering 3.11’s archives that document the process of reconstruction following the disaster. The Vancouver show marks the first time Lost & Found has been displayed in Canada.
“Those are very sensitive objects and also very powerful objects,” Nakamura says of the photos. “We cannot recognize the images clearly but at the same time we can kind of speculate as to what kind of life those people might have had prior to disaster.”
Prolific artist Masao Okabe will present The Irradiated Trees Series: From Hiroshima to Fukushima. The installation consists of 114 frottage works on paper displayed in a cylindrical shape to represent the silhouette of a tree and also a nuclear reactor. Frottage involves using a drawing tool to make a rubbing over textured surfaces. Since Okabe began practising the art form in 1977, he has used it not to simply capture random markings but to memorialize. He created these frottage works between 2008 and 2017 in areas of Japan affected by nuclear disasters.
To accompany the Irradiated Trees Series, Chihiro Minato will present a video of Okabe’s process.
Flower: Mizuaoi (Monochoria korsakowii)/Collected location: The estuary of Mano river, Kashima, Minamisōma/Vase: Jōmon pottery, mid Jōmon period, from Urajiri Shell Mound, Odaka, Minamisōma, Collection of Minamisōma City Museum, from Atsunobu Katagiri’s Sacrifice series, 2013 –2014.
A Future for Memory also features work by Osaka-based Atsunobu Katagiri, who is a master of the Misasagi ikebana school, ikebana being the Japanese art of flower arranging. He has worked with everything from small grasses to cherry trees; here, he is presenting 22 photographs of floral arrangements that he created in Minamisōma City, Fukushima Prefecture. The city was the closest habitable town to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Katagiri made his floral arrangements to honour all that had been lost.
“I chose him as an artist to work with because he is an artist who is engaged with nature, and I wanted to focus on the regeneration of nature, the positive aspect of this tragic disaster,” Nakamura says. “There is still life after this disaster.”
She notes, too, that one the types of flowers that Katagiri incorporated into these works was an aquatic species previously considered endangered; somehow, two years after the triple disaster, it began to grow anew.
A Future for Memory includes a curated selection of photographs and one illustration from an exhibition at Rias Ark Museum of Art Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture called Documentary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and History of Tsunami. The exhibit itself houses approximately 500 items, including remnants collected over a two-year period after the disaster and other historical items. Combined, these objects form a documentation of the March 11 event and its aftermath while relaying the memory of the victims.
The Lost Homes Scale Model Restoration Project, led by Kobe University’s Osamu Tsukihashi and his students, will showcase a diorama model of Ōfunato City, Iwate Prefecture that was greatly impacted by 3.11. The project, which launched in 2011, aims to restore lost towns and villages through 1:500 scale models made by volunteer architecture professors and students across Japan. Once a model is completed, the volunteers hold workshops with local community members to share stories and memories about their home.
Flower: Rose, cosmos, sunflower, cotton rosemallow, etc. Location: Location: Ukedo, Naime Town, from Atsunobu Katagiri’s Sacrifice series, 2013 –2014.
The show is an opportunity to reflect on how we are all connected globally, Nakamura says. The 2020 documentary Tsunami Ladies reflects this connection. The film tells the story of six resilient Japanese and Chilean women who live on tsunami-affected coasts and who are linked through the universal language of food.
Tofino-based artist and Parks Canada Warden Pete Clarkson, who creates work using objects found along the B.C. coastline, many of them from tsunamis, shares an educational component in A Future for Memory.
Nakamura points out that it was important for her to include artists who have an ongoing relationship with the people and places affected by 3.11.
“The works are all so different, but it’s important to keep communicating with Japanese collaborators and survivors themselves,” Nakamura says. “This is not about the past; 2011 is something that still continues to affect people’s lives to this day.”
For more information, visit MOA. Pre-booked timed-entry tickets to MOA are now on sale.
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