Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
A dock washes up in Oregon. For some reason, the corner casters? look too clean for it to have travelled across the pacific in a year, but then again, it also appears to have floated “wheels” up and it’s huge. There’s a metal placard on it, that mentions “service” but that’s all we can read from it. (KVAL – Dock)
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“When the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown struck northern Japan, I felt powerless to do something substantial to help my homeland. Family circumstances took me to Japan a few months later, and I resolved to visit the devastated area to see it with my own eyes. While I was there I decided to draw portraits of people who are living in shelters, to give them some token that a visitor from far away in America cares about their plight. “I remembered that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City, school children in Japan sent 1,000 paper cranes, a symbol of healing and good fortune, to my children’s school. I decided to make 1,000 Portraits to give to people in northern Japan – a symbolic way to demonstrate that others care for them and that we support each other in a crisis. “During five subsequent trips to Japan, I was assisted by a humanitarian aid group, which arranged for me to visit schools and shelters. The response was overwhelming; when I focused on my subjects, they started to talk, or sometimes to cry. One woman told me that she had lost all her family photos in the tsunami, and was so grateful to have my portrait of her.” Nakagawa is shown (above) with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly after sitting for a portrait last year. Ironically, Commissioner Kelly briefly lived in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the areas hardest hit by the 3-11 earthquake and tsunami. Nakagawa’s “1000 Portraits of Hope” will be on display from June 18 through Aug. 8 as part of “Voices From Japan: Despair and Hope From Disaster” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112 Street. For more information, visit stjohndivine.org
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Harley Davidson did the classy and offer the tsunami victim, Ikuo Yokoyama, who lost family members, a full restore of his bike, but he one upped them. Yokoyama asked Harley Davidson to keep the bike and put it in their museum and a monument. “The Harley-Davidson Museum is honored to receive this amazing motorcycle to ensure that its condition is preserved and can be displayed as a memorial to the Japan Tsunami tragedy,” said Bill Davidson, Vice President of the Harley-Davidson Museum.” (Foxnews – Harley)
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Bones to Wash Ashore. Sneakers with parts of feet in them might have floated across the Pacific. Surely there’s more boats as well. It’s a sad reality, yet it’s going to happen. “We’re expecting 100 sneakers with bones in them,” Curt Ebbesmeyer told the audience Monday at a tsunami symposium. Anyone who discovers such remains should call 911 and wait for police. DNA may identify people missing since the March 2011 tsunami hit Japan. (Huffington Post – Bones)
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As previously posted on GR, I made several trips to the northern countryside of Japan in the days and weeks following the disaster of 3/11. And, though the intent of these ragtag “missions,” was primarily humanitarian, I took many photos along the way, posting them with my reports on these pages. I recently culled the most evocative of those shots for display at the 12th incarnation of the always delightful Nippon Connection Japanese Film Festival, held last week in Frankfurt. Going through these images was difficult and, needless to say, brought back some very sad memories. What a year. GR readers will have seen many of these images before, but here they are (again) as collected for their recent showing at the festival. I know many among you are probably experiencing disaster burnout, but I think it’s worth having another look, and pausing to contemplate the awesome power of nature and, indeed, the transience of our own existence. From Tokyo, m All photos copyright © 2012 Michael Arias. All rights reserved.
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