“After the Quake — Tohoku, Japan”
Photographed in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures between Sept 2012-Mar 2015
When a massive tsunami struck Japan in March 2011, it changed the landscape forever. Today the northeastern coast of Japan is a place of unhealed wounds.
The media buzz over such a horrific event takes just weeks or months to fade away. But few people stop to think about what happens after.
The earthquake ravaged coast of Tohoku now exists in a strange state of isolation and detachment from the rest of society. It feels as though Nature paused to catch her breath, leaving this region trapped outside of Time.
As I walked through those broken coastal cities, I realized that the reshaped landscape of Tohoku doesn’t just reflect humankind’s helplessness in the face of natural disaster. It is also embracing a people’s physical and psychological trauma, as if the land itself were willing to absorb their pain.
Time passes slowly on the coast, and the sudden changes wrought by Nature are now accepted as the new reality. Life is moving on, even among the ruins.