Fukushima Iceland E

field work

Fukushima ・・・ Iceland

2013年6月10日（月）〜6月29日（土）

Gallery360°

This exhibition presents Endless Drawing - fuGkAuRsDhUiRma -, the works based on digital images, which were delivered at the art symposium held in Gardur, Iceland in 2012, and the photographs taken during the production.

In August, 2011, I felt the urge to be physically close to Fukushima, and eventually visited the places damaged by the earthquake and the accidents at the nuclear power plant. Everything that caught my eyes were nothing but a shock to me, the beeping sound of the Geiger counter, the number shown on the counter screen, the sealed off roads, the empty houses, and the grass grown to the height of human being.

Thereafter, the opportunity to join the art symposium in Iceland was brought to me. As an artist living in Japan, it was not an option not to speak about what happened in Fukushima, and I grasped the story line of the work. While having the urge to tell what it is like now in Fukushima, as I want to view the situation in Iceland as well, I conducted my field work (Endless Drawing) at specific places in both countries, and took photographs. Holding a camera and a Geiger counter together, the shooting was done moving from the left-hand sky to the right, and the landscape was shot as well as the digital sound. Those recorded images are connected in turn from Iceland to Fukushima to Iceland to Fukushima to make one visual art. Beyond time and places, the images visualize that everything is connected under the sky, and that was what I wanted to communicate. Also, this work is made as a prayer for the recovery of Fukushima (Japan) and the maintenance of the status quo in Iceland.

Translation Ayumi Kudo

Iceland is far away from Japan. Iceland is a country (or the islands) that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge appears as islands having cracks running underneath here and there, and the country is also where Eurasia is born. Japan sits on a sinking point at the edge of the same geographic plate. Earthquakes happen frequently in Iceland as Japan does due to many volcanoes. However, the power supply is clearly what makes the two countries different. The power consumption per citizen in Iceland is five times higher than that of Japan, because they put waterpower and geothermal power to practical use. In fact, once a volcano erupts in Iceland, the ashes make flight cancellations all over Europe. My image about Iceland is a sacred and clean island far in northwest direction. It must have been that Japan was a sacred and miraculous country in the east. The accident in the nuclear power plant in Fukushima teaches us that it is not true anymore.

I walked and walked for my field work in Iceland carrying equipments thinking as if my job was walking. While I was walking tired, the Geiger counter just showed “0”. Can it be true? Iceland is just clean beyond my imagination, especially because I walked in radiation -contaminated Fukushima.

For your information, the roads in Iidate-village and Tsushima, Namie-town to the places where I took photographs have been closed since April 1st this year.

Moroizumi