Masayo Nishimura: The New Horizon – Scenes in northern Japan nearly two years after the disaster, April 29, 2014 – May 24, 2014.
Masayo Nishimura, a native of Japan, took a bike trip up the north Pacific coast of Japan to record the devastation of the Great Tohoku Kanto Earthquake & Tsunami of March 11, 2011 and the later consequential Nuclear Disaster. The first noticeable feature of Nishimura’s work is the quality of the photographs: clear, clean, crisp and intelligible. The second is the stark, barren, exposed burnt slabs of concrete foundations and stretches of black grass, and land cleared of structures and remains: evidence of tragedy.
Masayo does not romanticize nor dodge the truth; she uses frontal, flat horizons that hold the disaster in plain view inviting us to understand the magnitude of the trauma. Masayo takes these pictures with a deep reverence for the dead, focusing on impromptu altars and mourning sites. She spoke of her own shaking hands while holding the camera, acutely conscious of the essence of the souls still occupying the space and the heavy loss. Yet she is careful to connect with hope: a dragonfly alights on a steel rod; rows of sunflowers (planted both to absorb the salt but also to ease the pain for mourners); trucks and workers busy wiping away the debris preparing for the new. She has memorialized the devastation and loss and evidenced the beginnings of renewal of a beautiful seaside area ravaged by nature combined with human error. Beautiful show!
---One of the Ceres member wrote this after our monthly meeting in early May. I was quite impressed with the quality of the writing as well as very flattered with this rave review. Thank you very much!! Tomorrow, I'm going back to Osaka Japan.
"The New Horizon" Exhibition Events: May 15th, 7pm Jazz dance performance by Yumiko Suzuki & friends,
I saw the Jazz dance performance by Yumiko Suzuki & friends at the Ceres gallery. Yumiko was introduced by my longtime friend Miriam. Miriam has been taking classes with a famed NY Jazz dancer, Sue Samuels for years, and Yumiko was the member of Sue's company - Jazz Roots Dance Company. Miriam saw Yumiko's dance performance there and thought she would be perfectly fit for "The New Horizon" exhibition's event.
Miriam was right. Yumiko Suzuki and her friends, Kyoko & Marina danced their hearts out in honor of people who suffered as well as survived the Tsunami. I definitely felt emotional connection from their performance. Thank you!
"into the crystal" Butoh dance performance by Mario Endo at Ceres gallery
I saw Butoh dance performance by Mario Endo "into the crystal" at Ceres gallery opening. What a beautiful & inspirational dancer she was!! She literally transformed herself into an insect or a bird about to regenerate from the ground, like a Cicada or a small wounded bird crawl out of the earth after many years in the darkness. Her performance reminded me how seasonal cycles remain strong and unchanged even after the devastating loss like Japan's Tohoku tsunami & earthquake.
I felt her 20 minutes performance like a life long drama. Tibetan music played for her dance was excellent too. Thank you!
"The New Horizon" photography exhibition, Events: May 15th, 7pm Jazz dance performance by Yumiko Suzuki & friends, May 22nd, 7pm, Vernita N'Cognita
May15th, 7pm
At Ceres Gallery (547 West 27th St Suite 201)
Performance by
Yumiko Suzuki and friends from Jazz Roots dance company
1) “Listen” (Jazz Roots dance
company's number)
Choreography
by Sue Samuels, Dancer:
Yumiko Suzuki
2) “Forward”
Choreography
by Marina Yuri, Dancer: Marina
Yuri
3) “Battlefield”
Choreography
by Yumiko Suzuki, Dancers: Kyoko Koshika,
Marina Yuri, Yumiko Suzuki
Yumiko Suzuki is originally
from Gunma, Japan. She started Ballet at the age of 6. After studying at Japan
woman's physical education college in Tokyo, she started to teach yoga, pilates
and dance and moved to New York for improving her dance. She is a one of
the Jazz Roots dance Company's original member and has been performing at
numerous performances.
Closing event
Vernita N'Cognita will be performing with Cat Casual
Ceres Gallery
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-947-6100
art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-947-6100
art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
"The New Horizon" photography exhibition, Opening Event: May 1st, 7pm "into the crystal" Butoh performance by Mariko Endo
May 1st, 7pm
at Ceres Gallery (547 West 27th St Suite 201)
"into the crystal"
Butoh dance performance by Mariko Endo
Mariko Endo is a professional Japanese Butoh Dancer who trained with Akira Kasai, one of the co-founders of the Butoh movement. She toured Japan and the United States as a principal dancer in Japan’s representative Butoh companies, Dairakudakan. In addition to her foundation of dance, she studied anthropology and energy healing, all which influence her approach to dance as a sculpture of consciousness. Since moving to New York, she has been active in many dance and multi-media projects. Mariko collaborates with legendary sound artist Liz Phillips, one of the pioneers in creating interactive sound sculptures, and with Tobias Hutzler, an international photographer, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times. She appears in Fabrizio Chiesa's short film, Forest Jewels (Aurora Lopez Mejia Jewelry).
http://mariko-butohnyc.blogspot.com/
Ceres gallery
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-947-6100
art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
New Horizon -- Artist Note
On March 11, 2011 at 2:46 PM, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 struck off the coast of northern Japan – Tohoku – and triggered a 30-foot Tsunami that wiped out entire towns and villages, and killed more than 20,000 people. At the time, I was in Japan visiting my cancer-stricken mother in my hometown of Osaka. Luckily, Osaka is located about 400 miles west from Tohoku and was affected by only a few tremors, but I witnessed the devastation on television every day for the next few weeks with my mother. She passed away in June that year.
A year later, in June 2012, I returned to Osaka again from NYC for the one year anniversary of my mother’s passing, and got an opportunity to visit my old friend from NY who now lives in Sendai city, which is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture in the Tohoku region. She suggested that I visit the area hit by the tsunami and photograph the recovery process. She knew some of the areas well, since she had been working as a volunteer caseworker for tsunami survivors who were living in temporary housing. As a result, by December of that year, I had made three trips to the coastal towns hit hardest - Higashimatsushima, Ishinomaki, Onagawa and Minamisanriku in Miyagi, and Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture.
During my first visit in June to one of those regions – Shizugawa, Minamisanriku town, I was struck by the emptiness of the vast landscape on the flat horizon. The massive tsunami water had swept away not only the seaside area, but had reached as far as six miles (10 km) inland, and had destroyed the entire region, including train stations and railways. Since it was 15 months after the disaster, most survivors had been moved from evacuation shelters to temporary housing units, which were located in elevated places. But the town was not silent, rather, it was filled with the lively noise of truck traffic and the sound of heavy machinery.
By then, many tsunami-wrecked houses had been roughly removed from the sites and only their foundations were left on the muddy ground with other debris. A few concrete buildings remained standing, with exposed steel frames and broken windows. By the seaside, mountains of debris were lined up and construction workers with cranes kept working busily. The debris was a reminder of the lost community. Among the scattered fragments I encountered a vintage steam locomotive which had drifted from the town’s park.
During my trip, I noticed that every city I went had a special spot for visitors to mourn. One of those in the town of Minamisanriku was a metal-framed former Disaster Management Center. The building stood alone in a field of weeds, decorated with thousands of paper cranes where visitors and tour buses routinely stopped to pay their respects. In the city of Kesennuma, the memorial was a big fishing vessel - the Kyotokumaru No.18, which stood in a residential district next to a busy intersection. The ship had been swept over a half mile inland from the city's dock by the tsunami. (*The ship was destroyed in the fall of 2013 after a citywide vote to do so).
The “Miracle Pine Tree” in the city of Rikuzentakata in the Iwate Prefecture may be the most well known of all; a sole surviving tree among 70,000 pine trees which had been standing along the town's coastline for 250 years. The tree became a symbol of hope in the region, but was cut down in September 2012 after its roots died. The tree was later returned to the original spot by inserting a metal skeleton into its trunk and adding replica branches, to be preserved forever. I was fortunate to visit the original tree and could feel its spirit and energy before it was replaced.
During my visit in early September, I found sunflowers widely blooming across the coastal regions in the cities of Ishinomaki and Rikuzentakata. Their bright yellow colors accenting the landscape reminded me of the people who passed there, as well as a celebration of new life. I heard later that the sunflowers were planted as part of a project to cheer up the people in the region, as well as for the effectiveness of the flowers in removing sea-salt from the soil with their roots. (*Some other prefectures like Fukushima, where the situation was much more complicated, were using sunflowers for absorbing radiation).
On December 10, 2012, I made my last trip to Tohoku. The first thing I noticed in Minamisanriku was that the once muddy ground was now widely flooded by seawater, and the bottoms of the remaining building lots were submerged under sea level. As I talked to local residents, I sadly found out that these lands were at increasingly high risk of submersion with the tide level change by the ground subsidence that accompanied the earthquake. Because of this situation, there was on-going discussion of the relocation of the entire community into much more elevated inland areas, and of the original town being turned into a memorial park.
The next day, I visited the city of Higashimatsushima via Ishinomaki. This day marked one year and nine months since the disaster. At 2:46 PM, I heard a long siren go off, and then the construction noises suddenly stopped. I saw a group of people gathered in the yard of one of the broken houses start chanting quietly. The house was visible from afar with its colorful flower designs and the English word “Home” painted on its outer walls.
When I first visited the town six months before, I was speechless at the view I encountered, of many wrecked houses standing ghostlike. Now I recognized that the town was in the slow process of restoration, and those remaining shattered houses were being removed one after another by crane trucks. Under the cloudy winter sky, weeds had changed their colors from green to gold, and shone brightly along with a makeshift altar on the fields. On the horizon, I saw a hawk flying low over the houses and dry trees.
I have not returned to Tohoku since then. At this time, I just want to say thank you to the people there, who provided me with a great opportunity to learn about the region and photograph their beautiful land.
I believe and pray for their recovery.
Thank you.
The Sunset, Shizugawa, Minamisanriku, Miyagi, Dec. 10, 2012
The New Horizon - Scenes in northern Japan nearly two years after the disaster - Photography
*The Sunflower, Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Sept. 11, 2012
*The Hawk, Higashimatsushima, Miyagi, Dec. 11, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Masayo Nishimura
The New Horizon - Scenes in northern Japan nearly two years after the disaster
Photography
April 29 - May 24, 2014
Opening Reception, Thursday, May 1st, 6pm - 8pm
Ceres gallery is pleased to present Masayo Nishimura’s The New Horizon - Scenes in northern Japan nearly two years after the disaster, a solo exhibition of Nishimura’s photographs. The Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, May 1st from 6pm until 8pm. The artist will be present.
This exhibition features Nishimura's color photographs that were shot in the regions of the northern Pacific coast of Japan from mid to late 2012. This is the area hit hardest by the Great Tohoku Kanto Earthquake & Tsunami on March 11, 2011.
In this series, Nishimura focuses on capturing moments in the restoration process by setting the scenes on the horizon under the sky. She captures images such as a field full of sunflowers under rain clouds, a locomotive lying in a mountain of debris, a bird flying over shattered houses in a field, a metal-framed building standing alone on a flooded seawater plain, and a makeshift altar shining brightly among the winter grasses.
She also photographed noted monuments in regions such as the Kyotokumaru No. 18 in Kesennuma city, a fishing vessel which was swept over a half mile inland from the city's dock by the tsunami, and the Miracle Pine Tree in Rikuzentakata city, the sole surviving tree among 70,000 pine trees on the coast. Nishimura visited right before the tree was cut down as part of the project to preserve it.
As we have seen in Nishimura’s previous series of NYC subway photographs, her image making is simple and spontaneous in style but appears uniquely quiet, fictitious and somehow meditative. However in this exhibition, each of her images also directly communicates with the viewer about what the regions have been through since the day of disaster, such as devastating loss, overwhelming sadness and emptiness as well as a glimpse of hope and strength in the areas’ long recovery process.
March 11, 2014 marked the three year anniversary of the disaster. Nishimura hopes her images will help people outside of Japan gain a better understanding of the regions’ on-going recovery effort.
* All the shots are taken handheld with a 120 mm film camera and digitally C-printed on Kodak & Fuji paper.
About the Artist
Masayo Nishimura is a native of Osaka, Japan. In 1993, she began her study of photography at CUNY Hunter College under Professor Mark Feldstein, where she discovered her interest in NYC subway stations. Since then, her subway-themed photographic works have been exhibited in various galleries around New York City. In 1999, while continuing her study of photography, she also completed her MFA in Computer Art. Her thesis animation film, Dream – a subway love story – has been screened worldwide, including at the Museum of Modern Art as an official selection of the New Directors/New Films Festival, sponsored by the Cinema Society of Lincoln Center and MOMA.
In 2000, she started working on a series of color photographs dealing with the lights and shadows created by subway architecture. The work, entitled Uptown Bound, was first exhibited in September 2001 in New York City and has been receiving enthusiastic responses from viewers. Since 2008, she has often returned to her native land and captured everyday scenes in the Tokyo subway and street. Those works were first exhibited in 2011, in an exhibition titled Recollections: From New York to Tokyo, which evoked responses from viewers as the transformation of an everyday scene into a unique expression that unexpectedly tells a story.
For more information please contact:
Stefany Benson
Director, Ceres Gallery
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-947-6100
fax: 212-202-5455
art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm - 6pm and Thursday 12-8pm.
Masayo Nishimura:
mniart@aol.com
http://multisoup.com
Wishing you a new year filled with wonder, peace, and meaning.
‘Miracle Pine Tree’ in Rikuzen-takada, Iwate, Japan, on Sept.10th 2012,
photographed just two days before it was cut down as part of project to preserve it.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/miracle-pine-tree-removed-in-tsunami-ravaged-city/
MTA To "Revisit" Installing Sliding Doors In Subway Stations?
Tokyo Metro subway already has the sliding doors ( = Suicide Prevention Barriers).
Other Platform gates, half-height (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi line)
"The Tokyo Metro began installing barriers in 1991, with the opening of the Namboku Line, and subsequently on the Marunouchi and Fukutoshin lines.
In August 2012 the Japanese government announced plans to install barriers at stations used by 100,000 or more people per day, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism allotted 36 million yen ($470,800) for research and development of the system the 2011-2012 fiscal year. A difficulty was the fact that some stations are used by different types of trains with different designs, making barrier design a challenge.[9]
As of November 2012, only 34 of 235 stations with over 100,000 users per day were able to implement the plan. The ministry stated that 539 of approximately 9,500 train stations across Japan have barriers. Of the Tokyo Metro stations, 78 of 179 have some type of platform barrier."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_screen_doors
Recollections: From New York to Tokyo Photography, Dec. 18 -Jan.3
Masayo Nishimura
Recollections: From New York to Tokyo
Photography
Ceres Gallery
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
December 18, 2012 – January 3rd, 2013
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm - 6pm and Thursday 12-8pm.
(closed on Dec. 25 & Jan. 1st)
Opening Reception,
Thursdays, December 20th & 27th, 6pm - 8pm
Ceres gallery is pleased to present Masayo Nishimura’s Recollections: From New York to Tokyo, an exhibition of Nishimura’s photographs. The Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, December 20th & 27th, from 6pm until 8pm. The artist will be present.
As a part of group show "Exposure", this exhibition features Nishimura’s color photographs that capture everyday moments in Tokyo & New York at subway stations. After shooting subway stations in New York for a decade, Nishimura returns to her native land and continues capturing everyday scene in the Tokyo subway.
With her spontaneous casual style, the artist is able to transform an everyday scene into a unique expression. All the shots are taken with a 35 mm film camera and hand-printed by the artist.
For more information please contact Stefany Benson, Director at:
Ceres Gallery 547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
phone : 212-947-6100
art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
Masayo Nishimura:
mniart@aol.com
http://multisoup.com
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