“Can You Get Anyone to Care?” Curating an Exhibition on the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Figures & data

FIGURE 1 Entrance to the Picturing the Invisible exhibition at the Heong Gallery [photograph], taken by Jo Underhill.

FIGURE 2 Picturing the Invisible at the Heong Gallery [photograph], taken by Jo Underhill.

FIGURE 3 Picturing the Invisible at the Heong Gallery [photograph], taken by Jo Underhill.

TABLE 1 Artworks and Essayists

Artist	Artwork title	Essayist
Lieko Shiga	Blindfolded Pilot (2010), from the Spiral Shore (Rasen Kaigan) series	Sir David Warren, British Ambassador to Japan (2010–2012) and Chairperson of The Japan Society (2013–2019)
Yoi Kawakubo	If the Radiance of a Thousand Suns were to Burst into the Skies at Once IV (2019)	Dr. Robert Macfarlane, Reader in Literature and the Environmental Humanities, University of Cambridge and best-selling author of ‘Underland’
Yoi Kawakubo	If the Radiance of a Thousand Suns Were to Burst into the Skies at Once V (2019)	Prof. Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and 2022 Holberg Laureatte
Takashi Arai	A Mirror on the Other Side, Maquette (2021)	Dr. Hisako Sakiyama, Co-author of the National Accident Independent Investigation Committee (NAIIC) report and member of the Takagi School of Citizen Science
Masamichi Kagaya (with collaboration of Satoshi Mori)	Evacuation: Insoles (2018), from the Autoradiograph series	Dr. Brigitte Steger, Senior Lecturer in Modern Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge and co-editor of ‘Japan Copes with Calamity’
Giles Price	Untitled (2017), from the Restricted Residence series	Dr. Kyoko Sato, Associate Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Society, Stanford University
Rebecca Bathory	Untitled (2016), from the Return to Fukushima series	Prof. Kohei Watanabe, Associate Professor, Teikyo University
Rebecca Bathory	Untitled (2016), from the Return to Fukushima series	Dr. Peter Wynn Kirby, Senior member of St. Anthony’s College, Oxford and author of ‘Troubled Natures: Waste, Environment, and Japan’
Takashi Arai	2017-07-13, A Landscape of Geiger Counters, Yamakiya, Fukushima (2017), from the Daily D-type Project series	Prof. Mikihito Tanaka Professor of Science and Media Studies, Waseda University and research manager of the Science Media Centre Japan (SMCJ)
Satoshi Mori (with co-operation of Masamichi Kagaya)	Cypress Leaves (2014), from the Autoradiograph series	Prof. Maxime Polleri, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Laval
Lieko Shiga	Portrait of Cultivation (2009), from the Spiral Shore (Rasen Kaigan) series	Prof. Brian Wynne, Professor Emeritus of Science Studies and former Research Director of the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change at Lancaster University
Giles Smith	Untitled (2017), from the Restricted Residence series	Aileen Mioko Smith, Director of Green Action and co-author of 'Minamata: A warning to the world’
Thom Davies	Untitled (2014), from the Nuclear Samurai series	Prof. Jacques Lochard, Vice-Chair of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and Professor at the Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University
Thom Davies	Untitled (2014), from the Nuclear Samurai series	Prof. Richard Samuels, Ford Professor of International Studies, MIT and author of '3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan’

Note: The two pieces by Takashi Arai could not be shown at the RGS or TUM due to budgetary restrictions.

FIGURE 4 A masked tour of picturing the invisible at the royal geographical society. Still from “Meet the artists ‘Picturing the Invisible’ in NE Japan” [video], filmed by Ross Harrison at the Director’s Gallery, Royal Geographical Society (in Takahashi 2021c).

FIGURE 5 Rebecca Bathory, Untitled, 2016, photograph, from the Return to Fukushima series. It is a common decontamination practice to scrape the contaminated topsoil into black plastic “flexible containment bags” (furekon-bukuro), which are stacked at temporary storage site like those pictured above. By 2015, more than 9 million bags had accumulated across 100,000 sites in Fukushima (Mainichi Shimbun 2015). The need to find permanent disposal sites is among the many issues my research respondents hoped the Olympic Games would underscore. (For discussion, see Kirby 2021; Takahashi 2023a.)

FIGURE 6 Masamichi Kagaya (in collaboration with Satoshi Mori), Evacuation: Insoles, 2018, autoradiograph, from the Autoradiograph series. Autoradiographs are images produced through exposure to ionizing radiation, rather than visible light. They allow artists to capture the contamination of everyday objects. Here, Kagaya and Mori have arranged insoles from shoes left in two evacuated towns. (For discussion, see Steger 2021; Takahashi 2022b, 2023a.)

FIGURE 7 Takashi Arai, 2017-07-13, A Landscape of Geiger Counters, Yamakiya, Fukushima, 2017, daguerreotype, from the Daily D-type Project series. (For discussion, see Tanaka 2021. For a student’s response to Arai’s work, see Klausing 2021.)

FIGURE 8 Lieko Shiga, Portrait of Cultivation, 2009, photograph, from the Spiral Shore (Rasen Kaigan) series. Taken shortly before the triple disaster, in the coastal village of Kitakama, this photograph was published in the tragedy’s wake. (For discussion, see Takahashi 2022a, 2023a; Wynne 2021.)

FIGURE 9 Yoi Kawakubo, If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the skies at once V, 2019, unexposed photographic film. (For discussion, see Jasanoff 2021; Macfarlane 2021.)

FIGURE 10 Kawakubo buries his film in Fukushima’s contaminated soil in this video, which documents the making of If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the skies at once. Still from “The Artist as Explorer” [video], by Yoi Kawakubo.

FIGURE 11 Giles Price (2017), Untitled, from the Restricted Residence series. (For discussion, see Sato 2021; Smith 2021.)

FIGURE 12 Thermal camera installation designed by Nicholas McCay in response to the work of Giles Price. [photograph] taken by Paul Klausing.

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Klausing, P. 2021. Response to Takashi Arai’s “A Mirror on the Other Side, Maquette.” Picturing the Invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/04-a-mirror-on-the-other-side.

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Wynne, B. 2021. Response to Lieko Shiga’s “Portrait of Cultivation” from the Spiral Shore series. Picturing the Invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/11-rasen-kaigan

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Jasanoff, S. 2021. Response to Yoi Kawakubo’s “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the skies at once V.” Picturing the Invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/03-if-the-radiance-of-a-thousand-suns-were-to-burst-at-once-into-the-sky.

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Macfarlane, R. 2021. Response to Yoi Kawakubo’s “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the skies at once IV.” Picturing the Invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/02-if-the-radiance-of-a-thousand-suns-were-to-burst-at-once-into-the-sky.

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Sato, K. 2021. Response to Giles Price’s “Restricted Residence.” Picturing the invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/06-restricted-residence.

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Smith, A. M. 2021. Response to Giles Price’s “restricted residence.” Picturing the invisible. https://picturing-the-invisible.art/works/12-restricted-residence.

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