Fuminori Sato’s Photography Exhibition “Rokkoku” 9/2-9/10

07/11/2023

©︎Fuminori Sato / Rokkoku

Fuminori Sato participated in the Photobook Master Class workshop held in 2018 to work on this project.
The Great East Japan Earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. A powerful earthquake and Tsunami blasted the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company, resulting in a catastrophic accident. Dangerous amounts of radioactive materials released from the nuclear plant were carried on by winds and contaminated a mountainous settlement 20 kilometers away. The peaceful life blessed by abundant nature the villagers enjoyed was gone. All residents were forced to evacuate, and their village, Tsushima designated as uninhabitable and difficult-to-return area.
National Route 6 runs north and south along the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. In the winter of 2013, he was taken to the Tsushima district by a villager who was on his return home. Radioactive materials without odor of color were eroding this village. The inside of his house was twisted into miserable chaos caused by wild animals that broke through the side entrance. Remnants of his family life remained as it was moments before the evacuation. There were drawing of child’s Chinese Character “laugh” and a certificate of commendation hung on the wall. The certificate was given to his late father, who was interned in Ukraine for three years after World War II. Generations of family history is engraved on the house.
On the other side of the village, the door of the old folks home was marked with a tag stating, “our family member was killed in action”. Also, a monument to the pioneers stood in the village center, in remembrance of those returned from former Manchuria to resettle in Tsushima. The returnees, emerging from detention, starvation and witnessing the death of their comrades, cleared the wasteland to found a haven in Tsushima, a place to create home and safety to raise their families. The villagers of Tsushima are refugees from an unnamed, invisible war – nuclear catastrophe. They were once unwitting victims of a war driven by national policy and are now the mercy of a national policy promoting nuclear power plants. Their past and present suffering is intricately woven together by decades of unexamined history.
Reminders Photography Stronghold will hold an exhibition related to this work entitled
‘Rokkoku’. The exhibition will run from September 2nd to 10th
The artist will be in the gallery during the exhibition period, and will be working on the book at the gallery.
We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.　

Rokkoku is the common name for National Route6. The strange sensations I experienced in Tsushima resonated in my head. One day, when checking on the disasters area including Tsushima I had visited on a map, I noted that many of them are connected by a single road from Tokyo – National Route 6, connecting Tokyo and Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. I sat out to drive the length of “Rokkoku” to trace the trajectory of open wound of past and present that led towards Tsushima. The people I countered along the road are chapters of a unexamined history of Japan: Koreans suffering from the Great Kanto Earthquake, a girl who lost five family members in the bombing of Tokyo, a preparatory student selected by the special attack corps “Kamikaze”, a 14 years old boy who went to the volunteer Pioneer Youth Army to Manchuria and Mongolia, a refugee applicant detained for years, and an elementary school student who wrote a slogan for promoting nuclear power, a rancher caring for cattle contaminated with radioactive materials, a man who resists against the construction of big seawalls. “Rokkoku” is not just road. It is a collective guide post to carve our past, replicate our present, and question our future.

Fuminori Sato

[Fuminori Sato Photography Exhibition “Rokkoku”]
Dates and times: September 2 (Sat.) – 10 (Sun.), 2023, 13:00 – 19:00
* Open everyday during the exhibition period, free admission
Opening reception and artist talk: Saturday, September 2, 2023, from 18:00
Place: Reminders Photography Stronghold Gallery
Address: 2-38-5 Higashimukojima, Sumida-ku, Tokyo
(6-minute walk from Tobu Skytree Line Hikifune Station, 5-minute walk from Keisei Hikifune Station)

Fuminori Sato’s photobook “Rokkoku” will be launched during the exhibition.
Pre-order available from here.

* Opening hours may be subject to change during the exhibition period, in which case we will post an announcement on SNS.