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Images of Suffering, Resilience and Compassion in Post 3/11 Japan 3.11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Carolyn Stevens
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Abstract

In this essay I explore the visual representation of suffering, resilience and compassion as expressed in a Tokyo-based photography exhibition in April 2011. An analysis of the photographs provides an opportunity to re-examine the meaning of disaster and victimhood, and to re-examine a society that responds to tragedy. Of particular note are intertextual references between the 2011 exhibition and other iconic images, some of which represent other historical moments of suffering in Japan, such as the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Minamata poisoning incident. Others reference ideas about family and community. The Tokyo exhibition sheds light on how a society expresses collective feelings of grief, fear and distrust after a major disaster, and how the socio-economic and political context of a contemporary disaster can be interrogated through reflection on the past.

Keywords

JapanDisastersGraphic Arts and Photography3/11
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 7 , February 2015 , e9
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2015

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References

Notes

1 “Natsu - Eakon wa Nando ni Nattara Tsukemasuka” [In the Summer, How Hot Does it Become Before You Put on the Airconditioning?], Yomiuri Online, 16 July 2012. Retrieved 7 January 2014.

2 C. Daniel Batson, “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena', in The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, Jean Decety and William Ickes (eds.), Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009, pp. 3-15.

3 Mikael Pettersson, “Seeing What is Not There: Pictorial Experience, Imagination and Non-Localization', British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 51, No. 3, 2011, p. 279.

4 Pettersson, “Seeing What is Not There”, p. 280.

5 Vera Mackie, “Putting a Face to a Name: Visualising Human Rights”, Cultural Studies Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2014, p. 216. Retrieved on 2 August 2014.

6 Pettersson, “Seeing What is Not There”, p. 287.

7 I directly viewed a selection of the photographs in Melbourne, and the remaining pieces on line. Readers are encouraged to look at the exhibition online to see the works I was not able to include.

8 National Police Agency of Japan, ‘Damage Situation and Police Countermeasure associated with 2011 Tohoku District; of the Pacific Ocean Earthquake 11 March 2014‘. Retrieved on 19 March 2014.

9 Jeff Kingston, “Introduction”, in Jeff Kingston (ed.) Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan, London, Routledge, 2012, p. 5.

10 For a full view of the exhibition, see “The Images of Tohoku Exhibit”. Retrieved on 23 January 2014. For other materials regarding the exhibition see ‘Links for the Zen Foto Gallery’, retrieved on 23 January 2014.

11 La Lettre de la Photographie, “Tohoku Images of a Disaster”, 2011. Retrieved on 23 August 2013 [please note the link is no longer available].

12 This comment has since been removed from the post, but was originally attached to this image. Retrieved on 23 August 2013.

13 This theme recurs in several articles in this issue.

14 See the Nagasaki municipal website for examples of photographs taken directly after the atomic bombing.

15 Kannon is the Japanese name of the Bodhisattva, Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist deity of mercy.

16 For an analysis of the complex meaning of this character, see Carolyn Stevens “Cute But Relaxed: Ten Years of Rilakkuma in Precarious Japan,” M/C Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2. Retrieved on 22 November 2014.

17 In 1997, the Uemura family began to refuse permission to reproduce the image, citing that the struggle to publicise the plight of Minamata victims was complete, and the further duplication of the photograph prolonged their mourning of their daughter's death in 1977. In 2001, Smith's widow released a statement agreeing with the Uemuras' request (see Aileen M. Smith, 'The Photograph “Tomoko and Mother in Bath”. Retrieved on 23 January 2014). Some have argued compassionately against the withdrawal of this masterpiece of modern photography (see Jim Hughes, “Tomoko Uemura, R.I.P”, The Digital Journalist, 2000. Retrieved on 23 January 2014.

18 Alexandra Harney, “Japan's Earthquake and the Hazards of an Aging Population”, The Atlantic, 23 March 2011. Retrieved on 20 January 2014.

19 Yuki Tatsumi, “The Role of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake”, Stimson, 17 March 2011. Retrieved on 27 January 2014.

20 For a precedent of this transference of nuclear issues from the local to the national, see Anna Shipilova, “From Local to National Experience: Has Hiroshima Become a ‘Trauma for Everybody’ ?”, Japanese Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2014, pp. 1-19.

21 For more on the volunteer movement in Tōhoku after 3/11, see Tom Gill, Brigitte Steger and David Slater (eds), Japan Copes with Calamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011, Bern, Peter Lang, 2013.

22 For more on the international response to the disaster, see Vera Mackie, “The Rhythms of Internationalisation in Post-Disaster Japan', in Jeremy Breaden, Stacey Steele and Carolyn Stevens (eds.), Internationalising Japan as Discourse and Practice, London, Routledge, 2014, pp. 196-206; and Matthew Penney, ‘The Voice of Ten Million: Anti-Nuclear Petition Movement Launched in Japan’, The Asia Pacific Journal, 2011, and Jennifer Robertson, ”From Uniqlo to NGOs: The Problematic “Culture of Giving” in Inter-Disaster Japan“ The Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 10, issue 18, no. 2.

23 The Japan Daily Press, “US #1 Donor to Japan's Earthquake Recovery, South Korea not even Top 20”, 08 April 2013. Retrieved on 27 January 2014.

24 The Australian Red Cross, ‘Long Road to Recovery for Japanese Disaster Survivors’, 9 March 2012. Retrieved on 27 January 2014.

25 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990, p. 12.

26 Shun'ya Yoshimi, ‘“Made in Japan”: The Cultural Politics of “Home Electrification” in Postwar Japan’, Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 21, 1999, p. 151.

27 Shun'ya Yoshimi, “Made in Japan”, p. 151.

28 World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in Japan”, 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2014.

29 ibid.

30 Norihiro Kato, “The Ambiguities of Japanese Nuclear Policy”, The New York Times, 13 April, 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2014.

31 Ibid.

32 Mackie, “Putting a Face to a Name: Visualising Human Rights”, p. 221.

33 Mackie, “Putting a Face to a Name: Visualising Human Rights”, p. 222.

34 Katie Keenan, “Publics and Protests: Demonstrations of Public Grief in the Wake of Tragic Events”, Anthropology News, Vol. 55, Nos. 1-2, 2014, p. 8.