CreditsText: Don’t Follow The WindEditor: Jason WaiteBackground image: Eva and Franco MattesMap, drawings and English translation: Kota TakeuchiCatalan and Spanish translations: Zoraida de TorresLayout: Kota Takeuchi, Miguel AyesaVoice over: Cristina Carrasco, Roger Gascon

October 2017

A Walk in Fukushima is a coproduction between CCCB, The Influencers and Abandon Normal Devices (UK) in the framework of the European project The New Networked Normal. With support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

The Fukushima exclusion zone covers seven municipalities and a total area of 337 square kilometers, radiating out from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. After the initial explosions at the reactors in 2011, the government mandated a 20 kilometer radius evacuation zone. The zone was later revised to follow the wind pat-terns, which had spread deposits of radionuclides throughout the area. At present, there are an estimated 24,000 people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes inside the zone. Almost 100,000 were forced to evacuate temporarily after the disaster. Many more have chosen to leave surrounding areas, deemed ‘safe to live’ by the government either from fear of radiation or due to the damage to infra-structure and buildings which made their livelihoods difficult.

After the evacuation, former residents were allowed to visit their homes 15 times a year for about 5 hours at a time. The government suggests that they wear protective clothing, masks, and gloves provided by the authorities when they visit their homes. In 2016, the number of entries was increased to 30 times a year.

Some residents have not visited their homes since they were evacuated in 2011. Cer-tain residents have only been on a single occasion to pick up mementos from their previous lives. Others visit their homes more frequently, cleaning them and under-taking maintenance in the hope that some day they will be able to live in them. Cer-tain parts of the surrounding area outside the zone, which have also had restrictions, have re-opened after a ‘clean-up’ by the authorities: this consists of removing some of the irradiated material and bringing the atmospheric radiation readings down to a certain level, which they have deemed safe to live. In these re-opened areas few people have chosen to return. In Naraha, re-opened in September 2015, around 11% of residents have moved back. It is unclear when the entire Fukushima exclusion zone will be reopened for inhabitation in the future.

IntroductionThe curatorial collective Don’t Follow the Wind – Chim↑Pom (in-itiator), Kenji Kubota, Eva and Franco Mattes, Jason Waite – de-veloped together a long-term project inside the Fukushima exclu-sion zone and its ongoing off site correspondences. On 11 March 2015, an inaccessible exhibition situated inside the radioactive, evacuated zone entitled Don’t Follow the Wind opened on the fourth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that triggered the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant owned by TEPCO. Hosted in homes and buildings lent by former residents the sites include – a warehouse, farm, and a recrea-tion center. The curators collaborated with twelve participating artists including Ai Weiwei, Chim↑Pom, Grand Guignol Mirai, Nikolaus Hirsh and Jorge Otero-Pailos, Meiro Koizumi, Eva and Franco Mattes, Aiko Miyanaga, Ahmet Ögüt, Trevor Paglen, Taryn Simon, Nobuaki Takekawa and Kota Takeuchi. The exhibition is open and yet remains unseen in the inaccessible zone, contin-uing to be invisible for years or even decades, until the former residents can return.

Don’t Follow the Wind was named after the actions of an evacuee as they fled south towards Tokyo to avoid exposure to the fall-out borne on a northwesterly wind. As humans have no capacity to sense the presence of radiation, the project posits the critical imagination as a tool to overcome its invisibility and bridge the ongoing urgency of the crisis with its long-term duration. As daily information about the catastrophe and the residents’ separation from their homes becomes increasingly rare, what other points of contact can culture provide? If an artwork can’t be seen, what means do we have to imagine its existence and the forces acting on it inside the contaminated zone? The national and independ-ent commissions concluded from their investigations that the cause of the catastrophe was not natural forces, but rather the human lack of contingency and active denial of potential future by the government, TEPCO, and the nuclear industry. If the future itself was abdicated, what collective response can emerge to fill this void? Can the critical imagination extend into forming new ways of living and working together in order to compose a radi-cally different future?

Eva and Franco MattesFukushima Texture Pack 2015 - background image, wallpaper, luggage

The artist duo has taken a number of photographs inside the zones, not im-ages of wreckage, but rather simple photographs such as asphalt, wallpa-per, grass, and mattresses, elements that constituted the lived environment of the sites. From these images they have compiled “texture packs” to be utilized by architects, designers, soft-ware developers, and others. The im-ages from Fukushima can cover the shapes and spaces of our everyday digital world such as websites, video games, home designs and films. For CCCB the image of the mattresses found in one of sites take on a new life outside of the zone in the form of the background image of this guidebook, the wallpaper, and the image wrapping the luggage that calls back to the inac-cessible homes now in your hands.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone Map October 2017

Pacific Ocean

20 km

Minamisoma

Namie

Iitate

Katsurao

Tomioka

Naraha

Kawauchi

Tamura

Kawamata

TEPCO’ s Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant

Futaba

Okuma

福島県　帰還困難区域地図　 (2017 年 7 月 )Fukushima Exclusion Zone Map July 2017

20 km

　　太平洋　

南相馬市

浪江町

飯舘村

葛尾村

双葉町

大熊町

富岡町

楢葉町

川内村

田村市

川俣町

東京電力福島第一原子力発電所

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

With the collaboration of

I used to sit on

this cushion. After

the Great East Japan

earthquake on March

11, 2011, I sewed the

top of the cushion

together to use as

a helmet around my

house to protect my

head from falling

objects during the

many aftershocks that

followed over the

ensuing days.

I think the plants

in my garden in

Tamura near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear power

plant are no longer edible due to the radioactive

contamination. I hope one day I can use this basket

again to wash the fruits and vegetables so I can eat

them with my family. (*)

(Grandmother, 2016)

(*)

Local government policy on distribution of

agricultural products.

The description by the family members is based

on their impressions and does not necessarily

reflect the government policy on the distribution

of agricultural products from the area. As of July

2017, the following food products from Tamura cannot

be sold or consumed: wild boar, bear, spot-bill

duck, pheasant, copper pheasant, hare, edible wild

plants such as ginseng, ostrich fern, wild angelica

tree bud, bamboo shoots, wild butterbur sprout,

royal fern, and wild mushrooms. In addition, the ban

extends to shiitake mushroom cultivated outdoors on

logs found within a radius of 20 kilometers of the

nuclear power plant.

Vegetables and raw milk in Tamura outside of a 20

kilometer radius from Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear

Power Plant had their ban lifted in 2011. Inside

of the former exclusion zone that was canceled in

2014, the following agricultural products had their

ban lifted, vegetables in 2013, rice after test

cultivation in 2014, and raw milk in 2016.

Fresh or dried persimmons and peaches have never

had restrictions in Tamura.

The headsets containing the 360-degree film are made by three generations of Fukushima family of artist Bontaro Dokuyama, who live just outside of the former zone in a contaminated area deemed ‘safe to live’ by the government, but with certain restrictions such as eating and selling for wild plants. The grandson, mother, fa-ther, and grandmother all made headsets that share their objects and experiences from this new reality. Their descriptions share narratives of each headset recounting a new way of life after the catastrophe in which decisions are informed by rumor and con-tradictory stories from the media. Restrictions and recommenda-tions by the government are continually changing. Many residents feel a constant sense of anxiety. The headsets and descriptions made in early 2016 and in late 2017 reflect this uncertainty even though it many not accurately reflect present government policy. On the headsets, they express their desires for a different future through the lens of this unstable present.

A Walk in Fukushima is an immersive 360-degree video piece filmed in and around the uninhabitable radioactive area. The inti-mate experience inside the inaccessible includes sites of the ex-hibition Don’t Follow the Wind and comes in close proximity to the power plant. In the video, a former resident describes a visit to his abandoned home and his internal conflict at having worked for a company affiliated with TEPCO.

In the video, the artworks — which are installed within the exclu-sion zone in the former homes and workspaces of the displaced residents’ — are largely obscured by the bodies of the artists and the curatorial team, allowing them to retain their inaccessibility to, and invisibility from the outside world. The figures, in concert with the works, highlight the belief of many of the residents that the artworks are acting as placeholders until they themselves can return.

The CCCB, The Influencers and The New Networked Normal (NNN) have co-commissioned an updating of the video original-ly produced in 2015. While the zone is inaccessible to the public there is a so-called clean up operation going on which is trans-ferring waste from one area to another, trying to reduce the over-all amount of radiation so residents will be allowed back to live in a low level radioactive environment that the government deems safe. In the town of Futuba, inside the zone, a large sign over the road was installed with the slogan “Nuclear Power: Energy for a Brighter Future.” Chosen in a competition of local school children decades before the disaster, the phrase since the fallout it has been a glaring reminder of the myth of safety that was propagated before March 11, 2011. The sign is central to yet to be disclosed work of Chim↑Pom. In updating the video Don’t Follow the Wind returned to the site of the removed sign and shares the account of the school child who came up with the slogan.

Don't Follow the Wind A Walk in Fukushima2017360-degree video in headsets

The emergency earthquake bag, which has been in our

home, I did not use on March 11.

I was planning to attend a local festival that week,

with no participants left in the town after the

evacuation it never occurred.

I am constantly concerned about what I am eating.

Directly after the release of radioactivity friends

sent us produce from other parts of Japan so we

could still eat fresh vegetables and fruits.

I hope to be able to send them some of our local

produce at some point in return.

(Mother, 2016)

These are based on “Okiagari-koboshi,” local

toys from the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture

in Japan.

They are small traditional crafts which have been

made for the past 400 years.

With round bottoms, no matter how many times it

is knocked over, it will stand up.

No matter how painful or sad things happen, we

want to definitely stand up and want to forward to

the future.

This “Okiagari-koboshi” has become one of the symbol

of recovery after the earthquake disaster.

(Family Collaboration, 2017)

Seven years are going to have passed since

the disaster.

We will continue to live in Fukushima and

will eat vegetables and fruits grown in the land

of Fukushima.

The special product of Fukushima is a peach.

Everybody is welcome to Fukushima.

Please come to eat a delicious peach from Fukushima.

(Family Collaboration, 2017)