A Body in Fukushima
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From the Preface
THIS IS A BOOK OF FUKUSHIMA. THIS IS A BOOK OF WAILING AND UPSET, inhabiting time after March 11, 2011 and imagining time before then. This is a book of the irradiated landscape of Fukushima. This is a book of violence, and of disasters, fast and slow. This is a book of people, mountains, fields and the sea. This book is A Body in Fukushima: the body of a performerโan immigrant artist from Japan, and the body of a historian who is also a photographer, and the body of the land itself.
We traveled together to Fukushima five times between 2014 and 2019. Eiko performed in the disrupted landscapes. Bill photographed the performances. Together we selected the photographs and writings for this book, and Bill wrote the captions. The year 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Timeline in the book extends to include a deeper history that is part of this tragedy and this place. And Places Visited shows the coastline where we performed and photographed. We hope that these images allow you to enter Fukushima, to feel and smell it. โEO & WJ
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Born and raised in Japan and a resident of New York since 1976, EIKO OTAKE is a movementโbased, interdisciplinary artist. She worked for more than 40 years as Eiko & Koma, but since 2014 has been performing her own solo project, A Body in Places. Since 2014, Eiko has collaborated with photographer and historian WILLIAM JOHNSTON, visiting post-nuclear meltdown Fukushima several times to create photo exhibitions, A Body in Fukushima, which have been presented in many cities. Johnston's work focuses on complex historical events, and in particular epidemics, wars, genocides, and other disasters, through the intersection of multiple epistemologies.
