Healing After Disaster
Exhibition explores art’s role in recovery on the 10th anniversary of a devastating earthquake in Japan.
Atsunobu Katagiri, image from the “Sacrifice” series in Ukedo, Naime Town, 2013-2014
flowers, including rose, cosmos, sunflower and cotton rosemallow
How can art help communities heal after disaster strikes?
A show at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology until Sept. 5 tackles that question, bringing together work by artists who spent time at the devastated site of a massive 2011 earthquake in Japan.
The question has become only more relevant amid growing global disasters in the decade since the earthquake, the largest ever in Japan, triggered a tsunami that led to a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
“No matter the type of disaster, recovery is a long and challenging process,” says the show’s curator Fuyubi Nakamura. “Art can be a crucial agent in revitalizing stricken communities, providing a potent opportunity for reflection and creating a shared sense of hope.”
From the Documentary of the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and History of Tsunami Disaster exhibition at the Rias Ark Museum of Art. The situation at Nainowaki, Kesennuma City on April 5, 2011. (photo by Hiroyasu Yamauchi)
Five years in the making, A Future for Memory: Art and Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake, is a well-considered show that features work from several different projects and collections.
Nakamura, originally from Tokyo and now the museum’s Asia curator, says she favoured artists who had made long-term commitments to the site. She herself, has returned every year except 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel difficult.
“The exhibition is derived from my personal experiences in the disaster region,” says Nakamura. “I worked particularly closely on rescuing and cleaning photographs found amid the debris, an experience that led me to reconsider the relationship between memory and objects.”
The triple disaster included a magnitude 9.0 earthquake that triggered a tsunami with a surge of more than 130 feet. Authorities confirmed the deaths of almost 16,000 people, while thousands more remain missing.
Atsunobu Katagiri, image from the “Sacrifice” series in Ukedo, Namine Town, 2013-2014, southern magnolia
Osaka-born artist Atsunobu Katagiri, known for his mastery of ikebana flower arranging, lived in a town near the nuclear plant for eight months. He says he was overwhelmed by the devastation and felt driven to set up floral arrangements at the site to honour all that had been lost.
Some 22 photographs of his installations are on view. One shows a single magnolia on a chair in a collapsed room. In another, flowers and foliage sprout from a car the tsunami tossed onto a beach. A third shows a bouquet in the cup of a trophy in an abandoned school.
People are returning to the area. Katagiri says “it appears as if its pain has been healed.” But, he adds, “we cannot pretend as if nothing happened.”
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A frottage of the cut section of a tree in Iitate Village, Fukushima Prefecture, from Masao Okabe’s the Irradiated Tree Series: From Hiroshima to Fukushima, 2008–2017. (photo by Fuyubi Nakamura)
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Masao Okabe makes a frottage of an irradiated tree in Ōkuma Town, Fukushima Prefecture, in 2015. (photo by Chihiro Minato)
Contaminated soil and many trees were removed near the nuclear plant, including a sacred tree at a shrine. Remaining trees are exposed to radiation. It is to these trees that Masao Okabe, who represented Japan at the 2007 Venice Biennale, turned his attention.
The Irradiated Trees Series: From Hiroshima to Fukushima consists of 114 frottage works he created by rubbing and tracing the surfaces of various objects, including tree trunks, onto paper. Displayed in a cylindrical format, they are meant evoke both the silhouette of a tree and a nuclear reactor.
An accompanying photograph and video by Okabe's longtime collaborator Chihiro Minato, help shed light on the work's production.
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A scale model of Ōfunato City, Iwate Prefecture (photo by Tatsuya Fuji © ︎The Lost Homes Scale Model Restoration Project)
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The “Town of Memory” workshop in Ōfunato City, Iwate Prefecture. (photo by Tatsuya Fuji)
A large model of Ōfunato City, where many homes were lost, is also on display. It’s part of a restorative project in which pre-disaster models of villages were built to allow community members to share memories of their homes.
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Rescued damaged photos found in Yamamoto-chōin Watari District, Miyagi Prefecture on display at the Hiroshi Watanabe Studio, Los Angeles, in 2012. (photo by Munemasa Takakashi© Lost & Found Project)
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A rescued damaged photo found in Yamamoto-chōin Watari District, Miyagi Prefecture. (© Lost & Found Project)
One wall in the show features about 5,000 photos found in Yamamoto Town by the Omoide Salvage Project. The images, digitized in the hope they can be reunited with their owners, provide another way for survivors to share their experiences.
Women from Chile meet women in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. “Tsunami Ladies,”2019. (photo by Women’s Eye)
The show also reaches into wider geographic terrain, telling stories about Japanese boats that washed ashore in British Columbia. As well, a 2020 documentary, Tsunami Ladies, about six Japanese and Chilean women who live on tsunami-prone coasts and share their experiences through the universal language of food, is on view.
Thus, the exhibition is not only a case study of one disaster, but an opportunity to ponder the potential for a similar disaster on Canada’s West Coast – and the depth of global connections. ■
A Future for Memory: Art and Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver from Feb. 11 to Sept. 5, 2021.
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Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia
6393 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z2
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