PICTURING THE INVISIBLE AT THE HEONG GALLERY
Yoi Kawakubo
What looks like an abstract painting above is no such thing. It betrays its origins when you look carefully at its border, Fujifilm is written down the edge. The artist Yoi Kawakubo entered the shattered interior of the nuclear plant, exposed some film and then buried it. He disinterred it only a few years ago. This vast work is the astonishing result, displayed in the Heong Gallery’s moving new exhibition to remember this earth- moving, event
The Great East Japan earthquake has faded into recent history. The tsunami that followed and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima drowned 16,000 souls, moved the Earth more than ten centimetres on its axis. It shook Japan to its core and now is known as 3 11, the Prime Minister called it ‘ the most severe crisis Japn has faced since World War Two. “ He was right. The military mobilised, with 100,000 rescuers at Fukushima Daiichi but the full task will take unto 2050. More than 35000 people have left the area , only a third to come back.
Artist Yoi Kawakubo
Artist Yoi Kawakubo is just one of several artists to demonstrate their engagement with this terrifying event. The sheer size of his finished work is a key to the vastness of the significance of the disaster. The words of the Hindu scripture recur around it. They were first uttered in the modern era by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic Bomb and leader of the Manhattan Project, when he saw its astonishing impact,.
“ I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds’
The sight had the “Radiance of 1000 suns ‘
A striking exhibit is this photograph above, saved from the detritus of the devastation. But taken before it. On the walls of the Heong it has mysterious power of symbolism and somehow celebration . Are the couple in it still alive? Are they lost in the swathes of land destroyed in 311.? What does this say about our world?
What a brilliant and brave Exhibition.- with a superb video explanation.
Well done the Heong. Do see it
Picturing the Invisible continues through March, accompanied by a set of penetrating essays to match each photograph.
