A letter written just after the Great East Japan
Earthquake
Shiga Lieko

March 11, 2021 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan
Earthquake. Recently I have become particularly sensitive to the memories of thatquake, recalling in great detail the actions I took and the feelings that crossed mymind that very day. I often find myself crying in my dreams and thinking about thepeople that disappeared right before my eyes. Sometimes I even feel like thispast decade was only a day’s length. Why so? I think it’s because I am beginningto feel this strong and complicated sense of regret, that I should have thought
more deeply for myself about what I could have done just after the quake, without
being overwhelmed by the many things that happened around me. After thequake, the inexorable wave of economic activities that were encouraged fordisaster restoration and governmental measures under the name of charity,subsidy, aid, or indemnity were no doubt thankfully received and saved many
people and their communities. I even wonder—if the nation had been cornered tothe point that we had to reconstruct our lives on our own with only the barest
necessities, what kind of a decade would this community have gone through?
The number of deaths surely would have risen and life would have been cruel inmany ways. But maybe if we had had to do things on our own, suicides wouldn’t
have happened and our society would not have become so divided. Perhaps wecould have better used the wisdom of the elders. Then again, the complete
opposite might have happened. This sort of confusion strikes me. I kind of feelshameful of the current state of my mind and body, which I must somehow
rewind back in time.

* Excerpt from RASEN KAIGAN | notebook, published by Akaaka Art Publishing, 2013
* Translated from Japanese to English by Jeffrey Hunter

The DisasterApril 5. To everyone who has been worried about me

In the neighborhood where I live (population 370), fifty-three were killed andseven are still missing. The tsunami was nature in all its raw power. It wasterrifying beyond imagining. When I think of all those who died, swept away inthat unequaled terror, my mind simply stops working. No amount of caring forthem on my part can reach those who, swallowed by the water, lost
consciousness in such terrible suffering.

In one instant on that day, the value of time, life, death, emotion, and things waswiped out, and all was flattened into uniformity, as far as the eye could see. Thena heavy snow fell and a night of complete and utter darkness descended. Hearing
on the radio that the bodies of several hundred people had been found on thecoast, and the repeated reports of the nuclear accident at Fukushima Reactor No.
1, just 80 kilometers down the coast, as well experiencing the constantaftershocks, I was prepared for the worst. I was so deeply distressed that nothing
seemed strange. Numerous unimportant, random thoughts floated through mymind, and I thought, this will be my end.

Now, I think about bringing back that deep, dark, uniformly black night, andthough I hope there is never another tsunami, I am also afraid at the same timethat those hours will fade from my consciousness.

At the same time, I am relieved and reassured to have been to resort to the valueof things, discussing together with the many strong older women with whom I
lived in the evacuation center what we needed, and then requesting them as relief
supplies, and distributing them to the right people; and when after looked eagerly
I found a single photograph sticking up out of the mud, I was delighted. But notjust photographs but also houses and people are buried in the mud. I am living ina reality when all things have been reduced to equal value. That is clearly linked
inside me to that dark night. The value of things has been torn apart and stands
revealed before me now. And that’s fine.

What I feel compelled to confirm with my entire being is that what I started fromNovember 2008, when I moved to Kitakama, is not over at this moment. If
anything I have done in Kitakama up to now was rendered meaningless by thedisaster, it was just the things that could be washed away. I was living amidst apile of things, many of which I won’t miss. If one aspect of the unease I felt at theconvenience of daily life arose from my dependence on things, than perhaps itwas just the useless dregs of my material desires that were washed away. I wasshocked by this. But that dark night during which I experienced that brief but
noble epiphany seemed to be telling me not to think of my life solely in terms ofattachment to and dependence upon material things; I felt that what reallymattered was the way in which I had tried to relate to society. Or at least that’s
what I said to myself.

There is still too little information about the nuclear power plant accident, and noone at the evacuation center talks about it. The media may not be reporting
everything it should, but we are also avoiding the subject here. Perhaps wecouldn’t bear to see the images. I think we find it impossible to conceive ofsomething worse than the present situation, and are just refusing to accept it. I
look it as my own fault, because of all the electricity I used to use.

There’s so much I want to write about that I’m afraid I could go on forever. I amvery grateful for your concern.

I wandered around with a camera I had borrowed. The appearance of theneighborhood was changing dramatically day by day, so I was eager to record itbefore it disappeared. Making a photographic record was the only thing I could
do. My belief that I must do that served as both a spiritual and practical support atthe time. But at the same time, I was terribly disappointed. Taking photographs
didn’t offer me any inner fulfillment, and I didn’t feel anything about thephotographs I took.

One day we all got on a bus and went from the evacuation center to Kitakama. Iwent with the woman who lived next to me to see where our houses had been.
She said, “Miso and shit were all swept away together, and you can’t tell thedifference between them.” We both laughed boisterously. We talked about
someone we knew who had just bought a new television and had only been able
to watch it for fifteen minutes before the tsunami took it away. Talking withanother person, we both complimented one another on how completely ourhomes had been washed away.

When I was wearing some clothes donated to us, one of my older neighbors said,“Very stylish,” and another older man, putting on some jeans, shook his hips and,laughing, said he felt like he was young again.

When someone, no matter how old, came to visit one of us staying at theevacuation center, the volunteer at the reception area would jokingly announce
their presence: “Mr. X, a beautiful young woman is here to see you.” Everyone
there would whistle and clap. There was great tragedy, but the residents of theevacuation center laughed to forget it. Someone was always joking, and this effort
to keep up our spirits actually helped us.

At the same time, others reacted quite differently, wasting away, or starting tolaugh and then bursting into tears, or sitting in a stupor, with an unfocused
expression. In that wide range of emotions, we all got through our daily lives.
Perhaps the power of nature was revealed to be so overwhelming that we didn’t
make the effort to resist or resent it, we just accepted it, and tried to act normally.

Standing on the hill where the main building of Shimomasuda Shrine just barely
remained, one has a 360-degree view of Kitakama, which has been entirely
flattened. The shrine caretaker said, “I wonder what this area looked like 1200years ago, when the shrine was first built. When I stand here every day, I always
think what it must have looked like 1200 years ago.”

What does it mean to no longer be able to live on your own land? I had justmoved there, and there was no way I could understand how parting from thisland would affect the lives of the majority of its residents, who had lived inKitakama for generations. I was commuting from the evacuation center andtemporary housing, walking around the empty space taking photos, but what I
first felt was that the fear of another earthquake and tsunami began to fade witheach passing day. Today, completely forgetting the day of the tsunami, I
sometimes stand on the piece of land where my studio once was with no feelingsat all. I may actually be trying to forgot what happened, but I am gradually feelingcalmer and am able to think about other things again. At the same time, I amaware of the various challenges I still face, and that a real trial lies ahead for theresidents of the area.

And all sorts of things have happened under the name of reconstruction.

One day a group of men in suits came riding up in a fancy car, talked to theresidents about some fabulous plan for building a casino to revive the area, andpromised that everyone would be better off, there would be jobs, and no one
would have to worry about anything. “We want to help you,” they said, passing out
fancy lunch boxes. They visited us several times, bringing along a big screen, andshowed us a dramatic video about building the casino, filled with images of theland that had been hit by the tsunami. Their actions and words were filled withgood intentions. But my reaction was if we let ourselves get caught up in this plan
for reconstruction, I was afraid we would have the power to decide our own
futures taken from us. This was because since coming to live in Kitakama, I had
learned how the wisdom and ingenuity of the people residing there has imbued
every corner of their lives.

The local people had a mix of reactions to the idea of building a casino. Somewere for it, some against, some too busy to think about it—naturally, there wereindividual differences based on the degree of damage they had suffered, theirfinancial situations, their hopes for the future, and so forth. And those differences
did cause some splits in the community. The casino plan revealed the differencesamong people’s values and cast a shadow over us.

I felt as if I had received a crash course in capitalism for the first time in my life. I
learned how society works, the power of money, and the essence of government.
And I also learned that these were the realities before my eyes. But the mostfrightening thing was that up to then I had participated in this social system
without knowing anything about it. I knew nothing of how it was structured, and I
never tried to find out. . . .

What had dominated me in such a way to make me into a passive participant in
the status quo? And in accepting that role, what had I been trying to protect
myself from? Poverty? Hunger? If it was hunger, then I was following not society
but the Law of Nature. Then what did it mean to live as a human being? There isno boundary between the good and evil we perceive, or the boundary is complex
and not clearly defined. Without good there can be no evil.

The newspapers, television, and the media were also relentless. I was forced torecognize anew how much power they exert. I began to notice how the edited
reality and shaped it. Or how they didn’t report on things, what they ignored. Thatkind of thing also creates subtle divisions among people.

The shadow over a community that is born in this way, among people who cannot
return to their homes, gradually becomes bigger and bigger. I think that land is amatrix for naturally healing such gaps. Living in one place for a long time, andcontinuing to live in such a place, forges human relationships that can’t beharmed by small things.

Yet my life takes place within society. From now on, I intend to think seriously
about my relationships to society and the community. And putting the personalphilosophy that I create from that thinking into practice for the rest of my life isthe way, I think, to prevent myself from losing that moment during that long darknight when I experienced a freedom from every sort of unease. I was fortunate
enough to be blessed with that opportunity, and I must not waste it.

At the evacuation center and in temporary housing we received all sorts of thingsfrom various countries and groups and individuals—monetary donations,refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, microwaves, electric thermoses, airconditioners, beds and bedding, carpets, dishes, hot water bottles, clothing, food,cameras, haircuts, exercise classes, a coffee shop, tea, massages, prepared food .
. . more than one could thank everyone for. The reaction to all this varied among
the residents. Some said they needed to get back on their feet as soon as
possible to show their gratitude; others said that they no longer even felt likesaying thank you, which made them ashamed.

I met a woman I had known in Kitakama who I hadn’t seen for some time. She
said to me that she loved Kitakama, so she wanted to start over from thebeginning there, and she was going to begin by weeding. She started going fromthe evacuation center to the site of her former home and weeded the area.
Without relying on any of the reconstruction plans offered her, she thought of thison her own and cleared away rocks, pulled weeds, and planted vegetables.
Though she knew she could never go back there to live, she was still quite
serious about it. For me, spending all my time thinking about society and mywants, and getting all twisted up about them, her actions, just carrying through on
one small thing, without worrying about how she was going to live as a part ofsociety, opened my eyes—to just naturally coming together with these people
around me, who had lived such long lives already, and to the wonder of learning
things day after day. In the past, when there was no food, they ate sweet potato
vines. They made compost and then sold it to earn a living; they went to sleep
when the sun set and got up when it rose; The flowers blooming by the roadsidedelighted and refreshed them. I am remembering the things that she told me inthe past.

What effect did the earthquake and tsunami have on me? I learned how fragile myenvironment is—both the natural and social systems that support my life. While
our society today is materially rich, we are facing a dead end. Whenever I am
made aware of that in some respect, instead of feeling despair, I become very
calm. By imagining a state of threat, I quiet something within myself. My desires
fade like mist. Rather than all the things I lost in the tsunami, my life prior to that,with the things piling up around me, seems scarier.

I have no idea how this experience can be related to my art. The fact is that up tonow I have made my living by producing works of art. In other words, I have lived

within that social system. I neither reject not affirm this, I just want to find a way
connect the present reality before my eyes to the past and the future. I don’t wantto make my works up to now into some distant illusion. Rather than directly
connecting my art to society, I think it is important to my work how it is linked tothe society in which it is made.

Still, in the weeks following the earthquake and tsunami, I had no interest at all intaking photographs. I was just trying to survive, and the events taking placearound me left me no time or energy to think about photography. After a while, atthe evacuation center, I used to fall asleep thinking of a dance I loved, or a song
lyric, or a scene from a film. When I closed my eyes, I felt as if someone waswalking toward me, and it was exciting. What could that have been? Having lost
my home and my studio, perhaps that was all the imagination I could afford. Butin those few minutes before I fell asleep, I felt an unbounded freedom. Freedom
was a concrete feeling within me, my mind was filled with images, and I washappy. It wasn’t an escape from reality, it was a very human feeling.

Though it was frightening, I went to see the ocean at Kitakama several times. I
walked there and back. To see the tragic, brutal, ridiculous mess of reality. To fillmyself with the power engendered by that confusion.

The horrifying does not lie, so it made me honest.

It seemed beautiful to me.