Tohoku comes to Chennai

 The photography exhibition, ‘Tohoku - Through the Eyes of Japanese Photographers’ opens at Laburnum & Indigo Galleries Cholamandal Village; the show is on till August 11, 2022


‘Tohoku - Through the Eyes of Japanese Photographers’, jointly organized by Japan Foundation and The Velammal International School (TVIS), under the aegis of Chitravathi Centre for Creativity, at Laburnum & Indigo Galleries, in Cholamandal Village, Chennai, offers a new visual experience.

Formally opening the show, on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, Mr. Kenji Miyata, Deputy Consul General, Consulate of Japan, Chennai, said the year 2022 marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relation between Japan and India. “The theme of the celebration is ‘Creating future for the centenary’, and the future offers great potential for the partnership between the two countries,” he said.

This show is an eye opener towards the natural beauty of Tohoku, he said, adding that such programmes strengthen the cultural exchange between the two countries.

Dr. Leslie D. Joynes, who is a New York-based artist and scholar on contemporary visual cultures, while delivering the keynote address, took the audience to various layers of the show, including history. “There’s old history and new history here. It’s been over ten years since the exhibition has started, and all the photographs were taken much before the calamity that hit Tohoku in March 2011,” he pointed out. While many photographs were taken the 1950s and 60s, even in the latest one photograph, taken in February 2011, there is no indication of the impending calamity, he said analyzing every set of photographs that have great scope for many layers of interpretation.

Ms. Gitanjali Sasikumar, Academic Director, Velammal Knowledge Park, who presided over the function, said the curator of the show, Kotaro Iizawa, takes us to the life and times of the region with a great culture and tradition through the lens eyes of photographers representing different generations.
“This way, we are able to understand the individual style of the different photographers who capture the landscape and also the life of the place in different periods, thus unfolding its history before us,” she observed. 
Felicitating the opening ceremony, eminent artists P. Gopinath and R.M. Palaniappan also addressed the gathering.



About this exhibition
This historic exhibition of the photographs, brought to India as part of the 70th year of Indo-Japan cultural relations, is composed of 123 works of nine individual photographers and one photographers’ group from Japan.

Produced in 2011, and curated by Kotaro Iizawa, who is recognized as a leading Japanese photography critic, historian of photography, and magazine editor, ‘Tohoku -Through the Eyes of Japanese Photographers’, unravels the history and life in the region of Tohoku in Japan. This region was devastated in the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history of Japan, and this exhibition was curated to commemorate the first anniversary of the disaster. 
“The exhibition was started a year after the tsunami in 2011, and it has been running for 10 years according to Mr. Koji Sato, director general, Japan Foundation-Delhi. “We don’t want people to look upon this region with images of the disaster. Rather, we want to show the rich culture and tradition of the people of Tohoku,” he said.

When an educational institution ties up with the cultural bodies, it would have a far-reaching positive impact on the students, said eminent artist Shri. Murali Cheeroth, Creative Director of Velammal Knowledge Park.
“This exhibition is unique in many respects. In Japan, this exhibition was curated to mark the first anniversary of the earthquake that shook Japan on March 11, 2011, devastating the Tohoku region, which has a great tradition. However, here it is not the devastation that comes to life in these photographs that capture the life and tradition of the region, which is known for the Neolithic Jomon culture, the deepest stratum of traditional Japanese culture,” he added.

The show, curated in cooperation with The Photographic Society of Japan comprise the works of Teisuke Chiba (1917–65), Ichiro Kojima (1924 -64), Hideo Haga, Masatoshi Naito, Hiroshi Oshima, NaoyaHatakeyama, Meiki Lin,  Masaru Tatsuki,  Sendai Collection, and NaoTsuda.
The exhibition would conclude on August 11, 2022.

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