Traces of Fukushima

The triple disaster in Fukushima on 3/11 brought many projects to display the place and the horrific effect of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear leak. Yet, beyond the immdiacy of the images and the videos capture during and after the events, seeking to document the events beyond imagination, several artists used photography in non-conventional modes to bring the evidence of the disaster in a slow mode. In my paper, I will discuss three projects created in relation to the Fukushima disaster, not as direct photographs, but with the use of photographic process to make a visual, performative remembrance of the events. My discussion includes Takeda Shimpei’s Trace series (2011), which consists of registration of radioactivity on light-sensitive photographic papers. Second is Takahashi Munemasa’s Lost & Found project that consists of rescued photographic materials, often losing their image, becoming matter, as a monumental work of remembrance. Finally, I will discuss Sachigusa Yasuda’s Michi (2013) projects, as a process in which she created a scroll composed of Google Earth images of the ground plan of lost houses in the Fukushima area. I argue that these projects, which are based on photographic material rather than direct shots, bring a new notion to the concepts of trace, memory, and their representation through photography.