Tsunami Trees

TSUNAMI TREES
Naoya Hatakeyama

Quinze ans après la vague du tsunami du 11 mars 2011 qui a touché les côtes du Nord-Est du Japon, les répercussions sont encore prégnantes, dans les paysages, les pensées de chacun.e, la nature même. Après la publication des livres Kesengawa (2012) et Rikuzentakata (2015) consacrés aux conséquences plus directes, humaines et matérielles du tsunami, Naoya Hatakeyama s’est intéressé au sort des arbres au fur et à mesure de la reconstruction de la région côtière. Il constate la métamorphose des paysages, inévitable du fait du réaménagement et du retour des activités humaines.

Aux détours de ses marches du Sud vers le Nord, il repère un arbre encore debout, balafré d’une grande entaille, comme coupé en deux entre une moitié recouverte de feuilles et une autre, nue et sans vie. C’est là que le projet Tsunami Trees prend racine.

Swept away by the wave, a large number of trees were completely destroyed and litter the land like the remains of a vanished world. Others gradually dried up, affected by the salt water, while some were cut down and used for reconstruction. Finally, there are those that remained between life and death, half-growing back. Naoya Hatakeyama experiences this valiant recovery in the changing light and passing seasons, a perpetual cycle whose beauty the photographer simply reveals.

His text (available in english also) at the end of the book sheds light on his approach which bears witness to the structural transformations of a landscape after devastation. He connects our place as humans in a world of “transformed nature”, which we shape with roads, dykes and buildings, disconnecting ourselves from the enduring yet ephemeral dynamics of nature. A world that can be wiped out in an instant by the relentless power of a wave. But one that also knows how to readjust after chaos and destruction, and which is gradually reborn.

This work is published with the support of the Sasakawa French-Japanese Foundation and the support of the translation and publication programme of the Japan Foundation.

Technical features

You can view or upload the press kit (visuals, cover, book layout in PDF et press release).