From Apr. 20 through May 18, the Mishkin Gallery will present After the Water Receded: Images from Japan, Portraits by Naoto Nakagawa and Photographs by Magdalena Solé. Curated by Elizabeth Avedon and the Mishkin’s own director, Sandra Kraskin, the exhibition documents the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that devastated northern Japan in March 2011. According to Kraskin, “The show is a memorial to mark the tragedy and the resilience of the Japanese people.”
Magdalena Solé’s color photographs taken after the disasters and Naoto Nakagawa’s portraits of survivors form a moving narrative of the disaster’s untold stories and the rebuilding of the stricken Fukushima prefecture.
Of her experience photographing post-evacuation Fukushima, Solé says, “Tall growing grasses, now feral farm animals, and ostriches took over the carefully manicured land and homes.” She notes that despite their immense losses, people are coping. “They organize and classify what has been washed up, they clean their destroyed homes, and come together to offer each other solace. Little makeshift altars stand in the ruins of what once was a home.”
Naoto Nakagawa’s “1,000 portraits of hope” are records of 1,000 survivors of the disaster. After the exhibition, he plans to give the artworks to the people portrayed. When he visited his homeland (he currently resides in the U.S.) after the devastation, Nakagawa decided to draw portraits of those living in shelters “to give them some token that a visitor from far away in America cares about their plight. I remembered that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City schoolchildren in Japan sent 1,000 paper cranes, a symbol of healing and good fortune, to my children’s school.” This is his way of returning the kindness.
A powerful visual record of terrible destruction and strength of spirit, After the Water Receded is one of the Mishkin’s most compelling exhibitions.
—Marina Zogbi
Exhibition Hours:
Tuesday – Friday, noon to 5 PM
Thursday, noon to 7 PM