Location: Landskrona Foto, Kavallerigatan 4. Time: Saturday 10/4 at 1-2.15pm . The conversation will be held in English. The event is free, but registration is required. Please register by May 5 via this form.
How do you depict a catastrophe that is both visible and invisible? How do images shape our collective memory of a tragedy?
On March 11, 2011, Japan’s Tōhoku region was struck by a powerful 9.0-magnitude earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami that in some areas reached 30 meters in height. The devastation was immense, further compounded by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which led to extensive radioactive contamination. In total, 19,765 people lost their lives, 2,553 remain missing, and over 20,000 are still displaced today.
In connection with the exhibition Reflection 11/03/11 – Japanese Photographers Facing the Cataclysm, we invite you to a conversation where photographers Obara Kazuma, Suzuki Mayumi, and Iwane Ai will share their experiences of documenting the aftermath of the tsunami and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The discussion will also include Lina Selander, whose artistic work has previously explored the legacy of Chernobyl.
The exhibition highlights photographers’ efforts to depict both the physical destruction and the long-term effects of radiation—something that can neither be seen nor felt, yet continues to impact lives for generations. During the conversation, we will explore the ethical and artistic challenges of documenting an ongoing disaster, the limitations of visual representation, and the role of photography in creating a historical record.
The conversation will be led by the exhibition’s curators, Philippe Séclier and Marina Amada.
Obara Kazuma
In March 2011, after the triple disaster in Japan, Obara Kazuma left his job to document the aftermath in Tohoku. He was the first photojournalist to enter Fukushima Daiichi and returned multiple times for his long-term work on nuclear issues. This led him to study photojournalism in London. After graduating, he focused on Chernobyl’s victims, earning the 2016 World Press Photo award for Exposure.
Iwane Ai
Iwane Ai moved to the U.S. in 1991 to study photography in California. Returning to Japan in 2006, she became a freelance photographer, focusing on neglected communities. In Hawaii, she discovered a Kodak Cirkut camera once used at funerals for first-generation Japanese immigrants, many from Fukushima. To revive this history, she brought the camera to Japan, photographing Fukushima residents in front of their homes and farms in the now-forbidden zone.
Suzuki Mayumi
Suzuki Mayumi grew up in a photography-driven family; her grandfather founded a studio in 1930, later run by her father. After studying at Nihon University, she became a freelance photographer. When the 2011 tsunami destroyed her hometown, Onagawa, and her parents went missing, she found only her father’s damaged camera and a few buried photos. Using the camera, she captured the landscape, feeling a renewed connection with her parents. Since then, she has created intimate, autobiographical narratives.
Kanno Jun
Kanno Jun studied film in the U.S. before turning to photography in Japan. In May 2011, she returned to her parents’ home in Fukushima, struggling to grasp the radiation’s impact. Ordering a dosimeter changed her perception—and her sense of time. For a decade, she documented the rise of storage sites contaminating the land and, using a Geiger counter, recorded the radioactive effects on those who refused to leave.
Lina Selander
Lina Selander is an artist and professor of Art with a focus on narrativity and installation at Konstfack. Her films and installations often stem from historical turning points, exploring relationships between memory and perception, photography and film, or language and image. Selander’s work recurrently returns to a fascination with the phenomena and technologies that have made images possible, enabling history to be documented.
Marina Amada
Marina Amada är en oberoende curator och medgrundare av konstkollektivet Spectrum. Hon har kurerat utställningarna Tokyosai (Magasins Généraux, 2024), Synchronicity (Kyoto Art Center, 2022) och Kazuma Obara’s Fill in the Blanks (Kyotographie, 2021). Hon sitter i styrelsen för föreningen NPO Ichijigahaku, som sedan 2011 har arrangerat workshops för barn i katastrofdrabbade regioner.
Philippe Séclier
A former journalist, Philippe Séclier is interested in photography in all its forms. His publications include La longue route de sable (Éditions Xavier Barral, 2005), Atlas Tadao Ando (Atelier EXB, 2021), and, most recently, Real Road Test (Atelier EXB, 2024). He is also co-director of the Des oiseaux collection at Atelier EXB and exhibition curator.
