Pictures of the Year International

This series is a visual representation of the destroyed and fragmented land and people of Fukushima, capturing the damage caused by radiation and the society that tolerates it.　 　In 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was hit by a hydrogen explosion, spewing radioactive materials into the air. Many residents were evacuated, and even now there are lands that are not even accessible. Knowing the beautiful land of Fukushima, I recorded the landscape of Fukushima in order to visualize the loss of my hometown and the invisible damage of radiation. In rural Japan, people and land have an inseparable relationship. That relationship had been completely destroyed. 　Three years after the accident, I moved to Fukushima and realized the absurdity that existed there by photographing it from the perspective of a resident. In Fukushima, boundaries were drawn not only physically, but also mentally, and division was occurring. Boundaries were drawn between the areas that were to be forcibly evacuated and those that were not, and these lines were also drawn between the minds of the residents. As a result of the difference in positions, the friends have turned into people they could not share the same feelings with. Once we step over the border from the empty area, we will find that nothing has changed and normal life is going on. Even the people who seemed to be leading normal lives there had damage etched in their hearts. The relationships with the land and with others that were severed by the accident cannot be repaired. The division of the land, the division of the people, the division between the land and the people. In the ten years since the nuclear power plant accident, the boundaries physically drawn on the land have been redrawn by radiation levels and the boundaries have changed. On the other hand, the division etched in the hearts of the people is irreversible. Still, they continue to live in their lost hometown.