LOST & FOUND PROJECT       Family Photos Swept by 3.11 East Japan Tsunami

CONCEPT

Until the day of March 11th 2011, all the photos we have here today were in people’s homes.

After the earthquake hit, a massive tsunami swept away houses, and everything that was inside them. Coastal towns were buried in rubble. Cars, clothes, refrigerators, photo albums: everything was swallowed up and turned to waste as people stood speechless.

As the search for survivors ended and attention turned to the clean up mission, Self-Defense forces, firemen, and policemen who were in Tohoku to help survivors began to pick up photos they found in the mud, and to store them in an elementary school gymnasium. They were not asked to do it, nor did they have a clear sense of their objective. Perhaps they were just desperate to find something in of the rubble that could be saved. Over time, the gymnasium began to fill up with salvaged photographs.

Two months after the earthquake hit, a group called the “Memory Salvage Project” began to sort out the photos and prepare them for return to their owners.
The images were cleaned and digitized by volunteers who came from Tokyo and other parts of Japan.

The images varied in condition, from relatively clean to damaged beyond recognition. Some of the photographs you see here were so badly eroded by bacteria that they could not be cleaned, and therefore could not be returned. But each of these images, kept in a drawers or cabinet, was someone’s treasured memory until that fateful day.

We all take photographs. A few special ones are cherished, and the rest forgotten. We take pictures when we are having fun, when we want immortalize a moment shared with another person. The photographs you see here were also taken under those circumstances. The depth of emotion might vary from snap to snap, but each one captures a point in time that somebody wanted to keep.

What are we supposed to feel and think when we look at these pictures?
Should we be happy that they were found at all, or sad that they will never be returned to their owners? Or should we simply mourn for the dead? The more I struggle to find answers, the more missing pieces I seem to find.

But without looking at the pictures, I don’t think we’ll see anything at all.

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EXHIBITION

Current Exhibition

Nishi-Azabu, Tokyo, Japan

Jan.11th-Feb.11th 2012
AKAAKA Gallery
ADDRESS
1 - 9 - 13 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN 106 - 0031
AKAAKA Gallery
OPEN
12:00 - 19:00
CLOSE
Mon, Tue 
ACCESS

Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line
Roppongi Station
10-minute walk from Exit 2

Toei Oedo Subway Line
Roppongi Station
11-minute walk from Exit 4b

Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line
Nogizaka Station
15-minute walk from Exit 5

Poster
Poster \1,000 (3 types)
70 % of the sales of posters will be donated, while 30% will be used for production of
posters and operating expenses in order to make this a sustainable project.

Upcoming Exhibition

West Hollywood, LA, US

Mar.8th - Mar.25th 2012
Hiroshi Watanabe Studio
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THE PROJECT SALVAGE MEMORY

“The Project Salvage Memory” was started by a team of young researchers from The Japan Society for Socio-Information Studies, who felt the need to return the photographs which were swept by the tsunami to their owners.
Everyone who is involved in this project is a volunteer.

We are trying to return a few hundred thousands of photographs which were damaged by the tsunami by sweeping the dirt off, rinsing with water and reproducing them in the digital format.

The people who were working in the early stage of the project were professors, college students and volunteers, but as the project became known through twitter and blogs,
many people who specialize in photography, professional photographers, and private companies from various fields started to join the project.

The cleaning process involves the following steps.
1) Sweeping dirt off and rinsing photographs with water
2) Numbering
3) Reproduce the photographs in the digital format
4) Find their owners by using index files and the search system

More than 500 people volunteered for this project, and 680 photo albums and 12,000 photographs have been returned to their owners by using the data which took 3 months to build.

As of November 2011, we are continuing to look for owners of the digitized photographs.

 
A countless photographs and photo albums which were swept by the tsunami were retrieved and collected at the gym of an elementary school   The dirt was cleaned off the photo albums with a cloth
 
The surface of individual photos was washed using a brush   Washed photos were hung to dry using laundry pins
 
The photographs and photo albums were numbered after being washed   The digital images of photos were made by using digital cameras
 
The photos whose images had been digitized are being stored, awaiting to be discovered by their owners   The digital images were processed by the college students as part of their class-room activities or by the volunteers
 
The processed data were archived enabling a search using key words   Many people came from all over Japan to participate in this process
 
Affected people every day looking for a photos   680 photo albums and 12,000 photographs have been returned to their owners.
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YAMAMOTO

Yamamoto is a town in Miyagi prefecture, Japan.
Strawberries, apples, and surf-clams are noted specialties of Yamamoto.
The western part of the town is a mountainous region, and the eastern part is a lowland facing the ocean. The scenery of Yamamoto was beautiful with farms and rice fields.

50% of the town was flooded when the tsunami came after the earthquake hit.
The tsunami not only swept the harbor away, but also many houses, cars, trains,
as well as people. 614 people died out of the town’s population of 16,700,
4 still missing, and 2,209 buildings were completely destroyed, 1,062 buildings half destroyed, and 1,110 buildings were partially destroyed.

I’ve come to realize that just telling the facts in words are not enough.
Numbers do not tell what it is like to lose their loved ones all of a sudden,
and not being able to see them again to tell a joke or even to apologize or
just to say thank you anymore.

There are still 1,000 families who lost their homes and still having to live in temporary shelters today.

yamamoto photo yamamoto photo yamamoto photo yamamoto photo yamamoto photo
yamamoto photo YAMAMOTO-cho
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donation

About Donation

Through my involvement in the ‘Memory Salvage Album’ Project, I was impressed by how many people are willing to offer help for the victims of the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, if given an opportunity.
I have seen how small help rendered by each one of these people found owners of the photographs collected from the rubble.
The aim of the ‘Lost And Found’ Project is to connect people who are willing to help, however small, and the people of the town of Yamamoto who were devastated by the tsunami, by providing opportunities for people in different places to experience the disaster through seeing the photos which were damaged beyond recognition.

About the Posters

Our plan is to collect donations for the people of the town of Yamamoto from the Exhibits. We decided to sell posters when a friend of mine commented that he didn’t know how much he should give since he’s not accustomed to charitable giving. We thought buying posters is an easy means for people like my friend to make a donation.
We hope to bring the exhibit to many locations, and in order to make this a sustainable project, 70% of proceeds will be donated, and the remaining 30% will be used as an administrative fee, such as the cost of printing and travel. Other than selling posters, we have a donation box set up at the exhibition hall. The money raised by the donation box will be all donated.

The Use of the Donated Funds

The money raised will go through the local NPO, Yunihuri-Miyagi to be used by the Residents’ Councils of the temporary housing in the town of Yamamoto.
There are 8 temporary housing locations, each operated by the Residents’ Council. In many cases, the heads of the Residents’ Councils are paying the necessary administrative expenses out of their own pockets. We felt that we can realistically raise funds to cover these expenses through our exhibits by providing people an opportunity to chip in.

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about

Outline of the Project

This project was first launched to give people the opportunity to see the photographs swept by the tsunami from the East Japan Earthquake disaster. The stories were reported by TV ,newspapers, and websites. However, we all know that what has been told is only a part of the story, and that it is impossible to tell the whole story. And one of them the untold story is the sense of silent presence of the survivors and of those who lost their lives by the tsunami.

These photographs draw us into their presence and make us become aware of their silent voices. This awareness is very important for us who are living now and will continue to live into the future.

Executive Committee

Chairman
Munemasa TAKAHASHI (Photographer)
Vice-Chairman
Kazuto HOSHI (Directer NPO Yunifurimiyagi)
Secretary-General
Yuichi SHINDO (Web Director)

Cooperation

Yamamoto-cho town office
The Japan Society for Socio-Information Studies
AKAAKA ART PUBLISHING Inc.
Photo Gallery International
trimdesign
NPO Yunifurimiyagi
Mozuya Inc.

Contact

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