Artists

Homma, Kaori - by Kaori Homma

Silent Summer without the Cicada’s Cry

“You should not play with fire or you will get burnt.”

by Kaori Homma 

I am a Japanese artist living and working in London, currently developing a series of works using fire and water on paper as a medium. The series is born out of my concern and struggle in dealing with the notion of imminent catastrophe, and invisible threat in the landscape of the post-2011 Fukushima Nuclear Fallout Disaster.
 
“You should not play with the fire or you will get burnt”, my grandmother used to tell me, while she was lighting incense. It was in early 1970’s at the end of summer in Tokyo; we did not yet have air conditioners, but each household had a TV, washing machine and bright fluorescent lights in every room. The smell of the incense was to deter the mosquitoes filled the room as an electric fan slowly moved the air. But I was not paying attention to her, toying instead with the matches, lighting one at a time for no particular reason. Fire has a compelling attraction. It is not only beautiful to look at, but also has the power to destroy. Outside, in the garden, cicadas were making a melancholic noise in the heat of the day, their last song at the end of summer. In the living room next door, Godzilla was blasting fire against Ultra-Man on the TV. How little I knew then that in post-WWII Japan, in order for us to enjoy this normality, we were literally playing with “fire” of a much more sinister nature, by building so many nuclear power plants on our seismically active, volcanic land, Japan.
 
Humans have always played with fire. I would say as a virtue of being human, with curiosity and an innate creative drive to investigate, experiment and employ objects, playing with something as fascinating as fire was a given.  But the “fire” that started in 1945 as a result of The Manhattan Project has been one of the most problematic “fires” burning and it threatens the future of humanity.

On 16th July 1945, in a remote part of New Mexico, under the codename of “Trinity”, the first ever nuclear device was detonated. And, as you all know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed shortly. If the story had ended there, we could happily be closing this discussion here and now. But even after witnessing the devastation of two cities where at least 200,000 people’s lives were abruptly taken, somehow not only did we not stop and think before investing more in this suicidal weapon, we have actually managed to ensure the subsequent proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. As a result, we now have this incredibly dangerous “fire”, 1000 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb. 
It is obvious that nobody has listened to my grandmother’s caution.

Kaori Homma: Arcadia

I have to admit, though, I also did not listen to my grandmother. The problem for me was that we had never experienced war, and we enjoyed the flawless supply of electricity for our house, refrigerator, washing machine and TV. Transport was seamlessly run and there was absolutely nothing to suggest that we should not take it for granted. Every possible advancement of technology was there for us to take, including nuclear technology.

The bad nuclear technology which caused the horrendous effect at the end of WWII was now made “good” through new technology and now it has been harnessed to spread peace and affluence in the world. The new nuclear technology called “nuclear power” was perceived as a hero in a TV series: Ultra-Man or Atom Boy. Or perhaps it might be more like Godzilla; a dangerous and powerful entity not to be made into an enemy. But, on the whole, we just did not think about it at all. It never worried us.
 
So it went on. The Japanese economy was booming, and we all acquired newer technological devices like the Walkman, computer games, microwaves and vending machines which dispensed ice cold drinks and specially brewed hot coffee in every corner of our city. With the advancement of technology, we thought freedom was ours. Playing with “fire’ was not something we worried about. Tokyo was a buzzing city with light irradiating as though each corner of the city was Piccadilly Circus or Times Square. No one ever talked about how many nuclear power stations were operating to supply our endlessly lit beautiful experimental disco nights. We were all too busy – falling in love, falling out of love, making art, and living.

And yet, I knew something was askew. As a young art student in the 80’s, I used to question our over-consumption of resources and worried about my artwork adding to the burden on the already out of control world ecosystem. I made artworks with great care by choosing recyclable and non-toxic materials, often dealing with subjects relating to these concerns. Tokyo’s endless nights of lights and parties also worried me. But even with my questioning mind, what happened at Fukushima in 2011 was totally beyond imagination. We never thought anything as bad as that was going to happen to us. The bad things belonged to the past, or somewhere far away like those troubled parts of the world – but to never us.

On 11th March 2011, the Pacific North East coast of Japan was hit by M.9 – the most powerful earthquake recorded in the world. With this earthquake, it is said that the Earth’s axis shifted by 20 cm, 8 inches – changing the length of a day and the tilt of the Earth itself. It caused a huge Tsunami and left behind 15,893 deaths, 6,152 injured, and 2,572 people missing. More than 220,000 people were evacuated from their homes, according to the National Police Agency Survey 2012.  

If it was just the physical damage of an earthquake, there might have been a chance to recover some aspect of normalcy, though the loss of lives can never fully be recovered from. There might have been a chance to move on and I might not be talking about this: as you know, Japan has a strong reputation for carrying out highly orchestrated rescue and reconstruction efforts.

But, following the M.9 and Tsunami disaster, one of the worst Nuclear accidents in the world was also triggered. The Fukushima nuclear disaster was classified as Level 7, equivalent to the Chernobyl disaster. The reactors’ meltdown at Fukushima and the plant containing a highly radioactive core exploded, releasing highly radioactive materials into the atmosphere. The wide ranges of contamination were identified throughout the Tohoku and Kanto region on midnight of 14th to 15th March. In the afternoon of the 16th, the U.S. government ordered its citizens to evacuate from an 80 km radius from the plant based on their own information obtained through U.S. military’s surveillance activities.

Kaori Homma: Fore Shadowing

Mr. Kan, who was the Japanese prime minister at the time, disclosed later in a BBC interview that, at one point during the crisis, the government was thinking of evacuating Tokyo itself. It is completely mad to even contemplate evacuation of a major world capital city with a population of 13.5 million, along with all the financial/political headquarters within it. Anyhow, they did not move Tokyo in the end. But nearly 165,000 people were evacuated from Fukushima and nearby regions and still, to this day, 5 years later, nearly 100,000 are living as evacuees.

Residents in the area can become quite defensive when discussing the issue of post-Fukushima. As the local population faces discrimination and lack of support and compensation, local farmers are left to fend for themselves. So, we are encouraged to eat Fukushima products and support Fukushima farmers. There is a big campaign in Japan to support Fukushima’s local industry, whose owners and employees would otherwise go destitute without income as they are not compensated by the nuclear energy company that caused the accident.

Talking about anything negative about the Fukushima situation in Japan is frowned upon, not only by the government but also by ordinary people. Many have lost their trust in the government as it initially concealed vital information about the effects of the disaster – one example being an arbitrary increase in regulatory threshold radiation levels in food and the environment so that some food previously deemed unsuitable for consumption was now considered safe. So even in Tokyo, which is more than 200 km away from Fukushima, some people are concerned about the food and drinking water, not to mention environmental radiation levels. This sustained anxiety is leading many families with young children to face an increasingly common social issue dubbed Gen Patsu Rikon – the “nuclear accident induced divorce” – where difference in opinion within a family unit about environmental safety results in a divorce. Tragic cases are the mothers and children fleeing without financial support and falling victim to human trafficking into Japan’s notorious sex industry. In addition, concern about exposure to low doses of environmental radiation is ever-present and difficult to escape.
 
Now, looking back, it is almost inconceivable that we were so unconcerned about our own nuclear situation before 2011, even though we have experienced earthquakes, typhoons, landslides and flooding on a regular basis. Even after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, it never occurred to us that we should be concerned about such a disaster in Japan. Maybe we were indoctrinated to think that old Soviet technology was not up to scratch but that our newer technology was much better. It was unthinkable that a situation like Chernobyl could ever happen to us in Japan where everything is shining clean and everything works as efficiently as clockwork. Maybe when we acquired the singing kettle, automatic room temperature control, automatic doors to every single corner shop, and self-cleaning toilets, we started to think we were invincible. But that was all a big stupid dream. And we can never go back to that careless world now. Not after Fukushima.

Kaori Homma: Late in the Afternoon

In Hikaru Fujii’s documentary art film, “Project Fukushima” from 2012, there is a scene where Fukushima local primary school children are being given workshops on how to read a Geiger counter. Each child is given a device and taken to different locations. As they go outside their classroom, into beautifully planted gardens and the forest, the Geiger counter starts to make alarming high pitched crackling noises. It is warning them of raised level of radiation in the area. Fujii’s film is matter-of-fact, and there is no emotional music or commentary, but I wept when I saw these little boys and girls holding this technological device. I realised that they are forced to see the world in a totally different way, now in the era of post-Fukushima. Every natural beauty for them might conceal dangerous radioactive particles, and they have been told not to play outside, especially not around shrubs and flower beds. The point of this workshop was to make sure the children know where the danger might be – the natural environment, the entire outside world.
 
Of course, children learn and perhaps they are wiser, much wiser than us who were totally blind to the danger of this “fire”. But what sort of world do our children inhabit? How can we compensate the generation who must be suspicious of the beauty of the natural environment? Who must consider carefully before they breathe the air deep into their lungs? They could have been spared if we had woken up to the reality earlier. But the fact is, we didn’t, not before Fukushima.

Kaori Homma: Silent Summer without the Cicada's Cry

Now I am living and working in London, which is not so unlike Tokyo. It is affluent, cultured, brimful of young people’s hopes and dreams. But I see a deja-vu. Post-Brexit London is not totally unaware, of course. Yes, London may not be so blatantly blind as I was in the 1970’s, but nonetheless, things are taken for granted as our technology is safe and clean. Some of us might still believe that there is such a thing as “clean” nuclear energy. Those who might still consider that it may be better than burning coal for the health of the planet. You might be a little more awake than me back then as you might be more worried about terrorism. But nobody contemplates the possibility of anything going wrong with any of the nuclear power plants in the vicinity of London. People know that Fukushima was really bad, for sure, but it has been perceived to be so far, far away. Just like I used to think about all those disasters happening around the world in far off places. I see the same blindness here. It is like watching someone being trapped in a sleep paralysis, and no matter how much I shout, this city cannot hear me. You think you are awake but are actually buried too deep in sleep to be able to do anything.

So, now, I play with a different kind of “fire’ in my artworks. Unlike the ‘fire’ of the Trinity experiment, this fire does not have any power let alone the power to evaporate cities. And unlike the “fire” of Chernobyl, Windscale or Fukushima, its lifespan is very short, it only burns momentarily and it dies down without much effort, leaving not much more than a charred paper surface. The images seen in my work are not by a pigment sitting on a surface but by a technique normally associated with secret correspondence used in the past called “Aburidashi” in Japanese. Invisible ink made with lemon juice is used to render the image slightly altering the delicate balance of paper: once exposed to the fire, images are burnt into and become an integral part of the paper. The resulting image contains a level of fragility and also the notion of death within it by nature.

But my works are not exempt from the weight of corporal guilt, as I played on with the fire ignoring the warning of my grandmother, it etches memories of my thought and visions on paper, like the shadows of evaporated people etched on the walls of Hiroshima. My work is a silent lament. Like the cicada’s cry which has now stopped in Tokyo.

I can only hope that someone might notice that silence, and wake up to the reality that we are facing now – the end of the summer.

******* 
Kaori Homma cofounded and coordinates Art Action UK to raise awareness of the issue. http://www.artactionuk.org

This text was first published in Novelty Magazine issue 5 - "Go to stay".