Takashi Arai, 'Here and There': too far, too close to Fukushima

Produced in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on the 11th of March 2011, Takashi Arai’s photographic series ‘Here and There’ focuses on communities that are struggling to cope with the fallout of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. By using a plate camera and developing the images with the daguerreotype process, at first sight the photographs appear to represent scenes from a bygone era – perhaps to a time when Japan began to open its closed borders to the West in the mid-19th century. Yet the beauty and nostalgia evoked by the daguerreotypes is quickly overshadowed by the realization that Arai’s work also alludes to an uncertain and perhaps even hostile future as the land he photographed is poisoned for many more decades to come.