Jun Nakasuji “The Street View - Chernobyl to Fukushima”

Osaka Nikon Salon

This event has ended.

For two years, I have walked the streets of Namie, only through Google Street View (Yukiko Mihara)
This is a line from a poem from a former resident of Namie, Fukushima. Through nuclear disaster someone’s home has become enclosed by an artificial barrier, and the only means to return is via the virtual space of a smartphone’s small LCD screen. Whilst recalling this poem the artist has taken numerous photographs across the deserted coastal streets of the affected areas of Fukushima over several years, coming to form a bitter sweet road movie shot from the car window. Here personal memories of a beloved home town are mixed with the memory of earth which extends through history. Looking to the green of the land as the light of healing to the scars of the Earth, he also points to the presence of pile upon pile of black bags filled with contaminated materials and the passionate resistance of humanity. 2016 marks 5 years on from Fukushima and 30 years on from Chernobyl. Although separated by 25 years and 8500km, they both mark tragic nuclear accidents which have shaken the world. In the 460 billion year history of the Earth the disasters of nuclear power point to dangers of the ascendency of human knowledge. From “Paradise Lost” there emerges a message for us all. The silent land and the soundless streets speak it all.