March 11, 2011, the Eastern Japan Earthquake was the largest natural disaster ever recorded in Japan. In the aftermath of an unprecedented tsunami and a series of aftershocks that followed the Eastern Japan Earthquake were an uncountable number of victims and a nation that was once again horrified by the unseen atom and the unfolding of disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It became a daily horror that still haunts all of us. We frail humans were witness to a horror that could not have been foreseen even with all of our knowledge and imagination, and to the existence of a phenomenon so immense that individuals were powerless to resist it.
Through this tragedy we also saw anew the local community and the nation to which we belong and in which we take part as individuals; our eyes opened and we questioned our submission to unseen authority as we recognized the emergence of this new challenge. Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has striven through democratization to take its place among the most powerful nations of the world and in the past has approved of numerous wars fought across the world. Now, during my stay here in Tokyo, I have tried to examine the meaning of these things. Ultimately, in my mind, these events call into question the very meaning of human existence, and force me to seek answers to my doubts. Is there objective evidence that shows human existence to be driven by desire? Is there some polymeric biomaterial inherited form our ancestors that form the mechanisms that induce it? Everything has been invisible. [Yoneda Tomoko]
“The Commenmoration Day for the End of the WWⅡ(V-J Day), yasukuni Shrine”
Phtographed on 15th August 2011
“Chrysanthemums” Phtographed in autumm 2011 at Hibiya Park, Tokyo
“Black Coves, Hiroshima Peace Day” Phtographed on 6th August 2011 (The day the atomic bomb was dropped)
“Hiroshima Peace Day” Phtographed on 6th August 2011 (The day the atomic bomb was dropped)
“Feather of a White Dove, V-J Day, Yasukuni Shrine” Phtographed on 15th August 2011
“Sadako’s paper cranes of Prayer, Hiroshima” Phtographed in August 2011 at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
“Evacuated Village, Iitate, Fukushima” Phtographed in summer 2011
“Horse, Evacuated Village, Iitate, Fukushima” Phtographed in summer 2011
“New Year Greeting, lmperial Palace, Tokyo” Phtographed on 2nd January 2012
