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Description

Large photograph of a southern magnolia flower on a folding chair, in a damaged room. Large sections of ceiling have fallen out; tiled floor is cracked and peeling with pieces missing. Walls of room have large cracks and white stains around them. Dark blue chalkboard-like panel along back wall of room; strips of board are peeling off along the right side. Black speaker attached to wall above panel and a dial controller below; closed half-glass door to left of panel. Large window on side wall of room has a white and green boat crashed through the frame. Nets and ropes scattered on floor underneath window. Additional debris swept into back corner of room; chair is in the foreground.

Narrative

Artist statement: "Sacrifice. I lived in Haramachi in the city of Minamisōma in Fukushima Prefecture from December 2013 to August 2014. At that time, Haramachi was the closest livable town to the nuclear power plant where the accident had occurred. With the visible traces of the tsunami still around, the city was filled with a sense of emptiness as people evacuated; at the same time, as if contradicting the emptiness, the city also came to be dominated by a sense of life filled with lush, green plants. Overwhelmed by the environment, I arranged flowers as if burying that which had been lost, and photographed them. Ten years have passed since the disaster. The landscape I saw at that time has vanished and the city has been reborn. At first glance, it appears as if its pain has been healed. However, just ten years after the unprecedented natural disaster and nuclear accident, we cannot pretend as if nothing happened. The flowers that rose from the muddy, contaminated ground at that time still bloom at the border between nature and humans. Where is the boundary between us and these ever-fragile flowers that cannot survive if humans exceed nature, or vice versa? Have we begun to find answers?" (Place and date made refer to artist's original photograph. Copies 3542/1-3 were printed in Vancouver in late 2021 for donation to MOA.)

Iconographic Meaning

Flower: Southern magnolia. Location: Ukedo, Naime Town.