Tohoku photo exhibition opening – 3 June 2015

The Embassy of Japan, in cooperation with the Wellington City Council hosted the “Tohoku – through the eyes of Japanese photographers” Photo Exhibition which was on display on the mezzanine floor of the Wellington Central Library from 3 June to 2 July 2015 with free admission. 

WSA, represented by Secretary Catherine Harrow and Committee members Stephen Gale and Raewyn MacGregor, werehosted by Mr. Fujiwara, Chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of Japan at the official opening of the exhibition on 3 June 2015. 

This exhibition was curated by Kotaro Iizawa and portrays the culture, climate, people and their way of life in Tohoku (northeastern section of Honshu, the largest island in Japan) including photographs taken from the 1940s until 2011 (prior to the earthquake).  

This exhibition showcases the work of nine individual photographers and one photographers’ group, presenting the viewpoints of highly individualistic photographers who represent the past, present, and future. This exhibition portrays the culture, climate, people and their way of life in Tohoku including photographs taken from the 1940s until 2011 (prior to the earthquake) by worldwide renowned photographers such as Ichiro Kojima and Naoya Hatakeyama.

Tohoku is the northeastern section of Honshu, the largest island in Japan, where the devastation followed the powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011. However it is blessed with a beautiful and bountiful natural environment of seas, mountains, rivers, and forests although it is in a rather cold climate. This region was developed by some of the first people living in Japan with culture flourished between 15,000 and 3000 years ago.

These photographs depict the varied faces of Tohoku, and we hope that the brilliant artistic expression of these marvellous Japanese photographers will familiarise visitors with this region.

The photographers are Teisuke Chiba (1917–65), Ichiro Kojima (1924 -64), Hideo Haga (1921-), Masatoshi Naito (1938-), Hiroshi Oshima (1944-), Naoya Hatakeyama (1958-), Meiki Lin(1969-), Masaru Tatsuki(1974-), Sendai Collection, Nao Tsuda (1976-).